Mercedes & CATL subsidiary Brunp announce battery recycling cooperation
Mercedes-Benz has agreed to cooperate with CATL subsidiary Brunp in China to recycle electric car batteries. Brunp says it already works with Volvo, BMW, FAW-Volkswagen and GAC-Toyota, among others, in the area of battery recycling.
According to the now-signed memorandum of understanding, Brunp will, in the future, recycle used electric car batteries from Mercedes-Benz, realize the cyclic recycling of materials such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium, and process them into cathode materials. These materials will then, in turn, be used by CATL in new electric vehicle batteries and supplied to Mercedes-Benz, completing the cycle. Beijing Benz Automotive (BBAC) – the joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and BAIC in China has been building four electric cars in China since mid-2022, specifically the EQA, EQB, EQC and EQE.
Brunp, for its part, currently operates 251 battery recycling sites across China. Parent company CATL is also building two large industrial parks to recycle and process battery raw materials into new batteries. One in the Chinese city of Yichang and a recently publicized park in Foshan. The background is that the world’s largest battery manufacturer sees growing importance in recycling and reprocessing materials. The approach is becoming “an important source of raw materials” in light of the growing NEV market, CATL expressed in late January.
Mercedes-Benz itself laid the foundation stone for its battery recycling plant in Kuppenheim, Germany, just a few days ago. Commissioning for the first stage of the plant, namely the mechanical dismantling, is scheduled to start at the end of this year. Talks with the public sector on further expansion are still underway. The plan is to supplement mechanical dismantling with hydrometallurgy a few months later. This would enable Mercedes to map the entire chain in its pilot plant, from the discarded battery packs to extracting individual raw materials in Kuppenheim.
0 Comments