Bosch to develop Europe’s first automated battery material recycling plant
By Luke Willetts - 28th April 2023
Battery recycling process
Germany – Bosch Rexroth AG (a subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH, based in Stuttgart), and the Battery Lifecycle Company GmbH have announced that in response to the rising demand for electric vehicle traction batteries and the necessary recycling of the raw materials they contain (lithium, cobalt, and nickel, for example), the company is developing what it claims will be Europe’s first fully automated battery material recycling plant in Magdeburg, Germany, using tailor-made machinery and software built by Bosch for this purpose.
Scheduled to go into operation in July 2023, the plant will be able to recycle up to 15,000 metric tons of battery materials a year and is currently undergoing a series of diagnostic tests using old batteries from different manufacturers to develop and refine the operational mechanisms to discharge, dismember, recycle and shred the remaining battery material. The recycled materials will then be transferred to the next site where they will be repurposed and reused.
