The metallurgical group Eramet has suspended its plans to build a hydrometallurgical recycling facility for lithium-ion battery materials in late October. In its quarterly report, the company said it was pausing the project in Dunkirk in northern France "pending a solid and sustainable economic model in Europe". It attributed this decision to a "lack of ramp-up" of battery factories as well as precursors and cathode production in Europe. As a result, there were "major uncertainties" about whether the future plant would be able to source sufficient input material and find customers for the recycled metallic salt outputs.
Eramet had been pursuing this project in cooperation with French environmental services group Suez. In a joint venture, the two companies intended to build a recycling centre for electric vehicle (EV) batteries in Dunkirk. Suez would be responsible for the upstream mechanical dismantling and processing facility, while Eramet would have been in charge of a hydrometallurgical refinery that would have processed the black mass from lithium-ion batteries to recover strategic metals. The upstream plant was designed to have a treatment capacity of up to 50,000 tonnes of battery modules annually, while the downstream plant would have handled 25,000 tonnes of black mass input.
In August, the two partners had announced that car producer Renault was joining the project, but Eramet said at the time it was still assessing "the merits and timing of when to proceed with [the project]".
In late October, Eramet announced its decision to shelve the hydrometallurgical project for an indeterminate time. "We have to face the reality of the market: the electric vehicle battery value chain in Europe is having a difficult start," said Geoff Streeton, Executive Vice President & Chief Development Officer, in an interview published on the company’s website. There was too much uncertainty about the capacity utilisation of the recycling plant as well as the market situation for secondary raw material outputs: "In the downstream segment there are no customers for recycled metallic salts, as no European projects for cathode precursors have been confirmed," the executive said.
Mr Streeton stressed, however: "We remain convinced of the need to develop a circular economy for critical metals on European soil, and end-of-life battery recycling will be a key element in this future value chain." Eramet would continue to study the market fundamentals required to make such a project competitive, he added.
Europe lags other regions in establishing black mass recycling capacity
Eramet’s decision is just the latest in a string of delayed projects to establish European refining capacity. Umicore and BASF have also announced in recent months that they are putting off planned investments in large-scale projects due to economic uncertainties. At the International Congress for Battery Recycling (ICBR) in September, a speaker from the London-based consulting and market research firm Rho Motion noted Asia is currently the only region in the world with the infrastructure to recycle significant volumes of black mass.
The USA appears to be gaining ground, thanks in part to considerable support from the government: In early November, the company Li-Cycle announced it would receive a conditional $475m loan from the US Department of Energy (DOE) for its hydrometallurgical recycling plant in Rochester, New York.
