Audi and Umicore collaborate to recycle EV battery

Today Umicore is a global materials technology and recycling group with about 10,400 employees and revenues (excluding metal) of € 3.3 billion (turnover of € 13.7 billion) in 2018.

Umicore generates the majority of its revenues and dedicates most of its R&D efforts to clean technologies, such as emission control catalysts, materials for rechargeable batteries and recycling.

Audi and Umicore have successfully completed their strategic test phase and the result is more than 90 percent of the cobalt and nickel from the Audi etron High voltage batteries can be recover

Starting January 2020 the partners will work on the next phase of closed loop of nickel and cobalt, that is from recovering to again converting to battery cells.

image source - Umicore

For this closed-loop pilot project, Umicore will receive cell modules from the Audi e-tron model, which will initially be taken from development vehicles. From those cells, the materials technology expert will recover cobalt and nickel, and process them into precursor and cathode materials. From this, new battery cells containing recycled cobalt and nickel can be produced. Since the beginning of development of its first fully electric cars, Audi has worked on the recycling of the vehicle.

Company's statement

“A closed loop for battery raw materials is a big leap technologically. We save precious resources and reduce CO2 emissions. In this way we come significantly closer to our goal of a sustainable supply chain and reach a milestone on the road to achieving an overall carbon-neutral balance by 2050,” says Dr. Bernd Martens, member of the board of management for Procurement and IT at Audi. “It is our aim to think sustainability holistically. This includes dealing with the remaining ‘end of life’ as well as resource-saving development of our products." Furthermore, Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore added: “Umicore is committed to enabling the transition to electrified mobility. Innovative technologies, responsible sourcing and closing the materials loop will lead the drive towards clean mobility. This project with Audi is at the forefront of the development of a sustainable value chain for electrified transport.”

In terms of technological aspects it is really a breakthrough which will save multiple euros and a carbon efficient process.

For Audi etron:

Combined electric energy consumption in kWh/100 km*: 24.3 - 20.6

CO2 emissions combined in g/km (g/mi): 0

The indicated consumption and emissions values were determined according to the legally specified measuring methods.

Visit

(www.dat.de) for detailed info on fuel consumption

https://www.umicore.com/en/media/press/battery-recycling-audi-and-umicore-start-closed-loop-for-cobalt-and-nickel for Umicore press release