Environmental services group Prezero has announced the take-over of Relionbat Circular, a company that only recently commissioned its new recycling facility for lithium-ion batteries in Meppen, Germany. The purchase agreement was signed on 14 August, Prezero said today, prior to the plant’s official opening. Relionbat Circular was previously owned by the waste management company Deppe and the car dealer Lueg. They founded the joint venture in 2023 with the aim of building Europe’s largest facility for the treatment of lithium-ion batteries (LIB).
The process employed is based on mechanical recycling, in which batteries are fully discharged, shredded and separated into material fractions. The plant has an annual capacity of around 30,000 tonnes of end-of-life batteries from electric vehicles and power tools.
One of the outputs is so-called black mass, which Prezero says can be recovered at a rate of more than 98 per cent. The company expects the legal and financial completion of the acquisition to take place shortly. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Deppe and Lueg had invested around €30m in constructing the recycling plant.
"With the acquisition of Relionbat Circular we are making a targeted investment in the future of electromobility and the sustainable recovery of raw materials," said Carsten Dülfer, chief executive of Prezero in Germany. He added that the Meppen facility was a perfect fit with the company’s "vision of a closed-loop value chain".
Earlier this year, Prezero launched "Prezero Return2Value", its own take-back system for portable and household batteries in Germany. Collection points are to be set up mainly in the supermarkets operated by its sister companies Lidl and Kaufland. The take-over now adds the recycling of large energy storage systems.
According to Prezero, Relionbat Circular co-founder and former managing director Christoph Spandau also welcomed the acquisition: "The various synergies with Prezero open up excellent prospects for our company and our employees. I look forward to continuing to work as a member of the executive team and actively shaping the next stages of development."
