AutoBatRec2020, innovation project supported by EIT RawMaterials, will bring automotive battery recycling to a new technological and ecological level.

Over time the growing electromobility sector will use increasing amounts of high-performance batteries. These contain strategic elements such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel that are not readily available in Europe. It is hence crucial to valorize these batteries at their end of life and conform with environmental directives while reducing the European dependency in critical materials.

Schematic build-up of an automotive battery system (Courtesy of Samsung SDI)

Unfortunately most of the Li-ion batteries introduced on the market today differ in design, materials content and even recovery state, which complicates any automated recycling process. To avoid hazardous and costly manual dismantling, an efficient recycling  would require a logistic solution capable of coping with this waste stream.

Innovation project on Automotive Battery Recycling 2020 (AutoBatRec2020)

Supported by EIT RawMaterials, the Automotive Battery Recycling 2020 (AutoBatRec2020) project (launched this year) aims at identifying efficient routines that are ecologically sound, economically viable and readily transferable to industrial scale. Every aspect of the value chain will be under investigation, from novel collection and transportation concepts to automated dismantling and sorting technologies, and finally separation of elementry high-tech metals.

The Fraunhofer Project Group for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS, part of the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC, is a coordinator of the “AutoBatRec2020” innovation project.

For more information, you are kindly invited to read the press release of Fraunhofer ISC.

The members of the AutoBatRec2020 innovation project consortium are:

  • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. (Fraunhofer), Germany (Lead Partner)
  • Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), France
  • Daimler AG, Germany
  • ImpulsTec, Germany
  • Samsung SDI Battery Systems GmbH, Austria
  • Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (TUBAF), Germany
  • Umicore, Belgium