WOLFSBURG: Partners from the industrial and scientific communities want to jointly prove that the most valuable components of traction batteries can be recovered and reused several times in succession through recycling.

The HVBatCycle research consortium has the goal of keeping cathode metals, electrolyte and graphite permanently in a closed material cycle (closed loop).

Under the leadership of the Volkswagen Group, TANIOBIS GmbH, J. Schmalz GmbH and Viscom AG are working together with researchers from RWTH Aachen University, TU Braunschweig and the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (IST) for three years to research and develop the necessary processes.

The project is funded by Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

In order to have to use fewer materials from primary sources such as mines or salt flats, essential raw materials are to be recovered not just once, but several times.

To this end, battery cells made from recycled material are recycled again, thereby also proving that even multiple recycling runs have no influence on the material quality.

Closing the loop requires complex interdisciplinary processes. For efficient and ecologically and economically sensible recycling, all processes must be coordinated with each other in order to produce sorted and high-quality secondary materials under the highest safety requirements.

This is about scalability and economic efficiency in particular.

The consortium project focuses on the mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling route, which is characterised by low energy requirements and the possibility of a comparatively simple decentralised distribution of certain recycling processes in Europe.

This favours a local circular economy and secures strategically important raw materials, which significantly reduces Europe’s dependence on other regions of the world.

The HVBatCycle project aims to identify efficient processes and innovative solutions that ensure the establishment of an end-to-end value chain with high economic efficiency while, at the same time, maximising recycling and energy efficiency and minimising environmental impact.

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