H.C. Starck receives EUR60 mn funding for battery recycling project
The German federal government and the state government of Lower Saxony are providing EUR60 million to H.C. Starck Tungsten, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, in Goslar, for the recycling of battery black mass.
At the heart of the project is a process developed by H.C. Starck Tungsten for recovering valuable metals from so-called “black mass” – the ground-up components of used lithium-ion batteries after the casing has been removed.
The process, for which six patent applications have been filed, is said to achieve a significantly better raw material yield compared to established methods, while consuming considerably less auxiliary materials and energy. It also produces only a tenth of the CO2 emissions that would be generated by mining primary lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese.
For an industrial-scale application, H.C. Starck Tungsten is considering the construction of a plant in the Oker Metallurgical Park with an investment volume of around EUR340 million.
If the further project steps go according to plan, the two-year construction work could begin in the first half of 2027. The target recycling capacity is around 20,000 tonnes of black mass/year, comparable to the battery content of around 100,000 small electric cars.
The funds, 70% of which are being provided by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and 30% by the state of Lower Saxony, are being awarded as part of the EU directive on the “resilience and sustainability of the battery cell production ecosystem”. Accordingly, they are intended to help establish and expand production capacities along the battery value chain in Germany and the European Union, secure employment and value creation in Germany and ultimately enable climate-friendly mass production of sustainably produced battery cells in Europe.
At regional level, the funding decision aims to strengthen Goslar as a location for innovation, business and production, to mitigate the negative effects of structural change and to promote the operation of particularly sustainable industrial plants.
