An electric vehicle battery recycling plant sets up in Dunkirk

Eramet, a mining and metallurgical group, and Suez, specialized in waste treatment and water management, have joined forces for battery recycling. Their pilot plant is about to start up in Trappes (78), on the site of the Eramet research center. However, the duo is already thinking about what comes next with work on a very large scale with the project to install a new factory in the Grand Maritime Port of Dunkirk (59). A logical choice, because giant battery factories are already being built there. The Eramet and Suez site will be divided into two: an “upstream” factory which will take care of the dismantling of the batteries, with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes of battery modules per year, the equivalent of 200,000 vehicle batteries electricity and a downstream hydrometallurgy plant intended to extract and refine strategic metals (nickel, cobalt, lithium), allowing their reuse for the production of new batteries. The two partners thus combine their expertise. Suez will manage the upstream part, with its know-how “in terms of collection, sorting, preparation, dismantling and recycling of materials from used batteries”. Eramet will take care of the downstream part, thanks to its capacity to recycle blackmass, the material obtained by crushing batteries.

https://www.suez.com/fr/actualites/communiques-de-presse/eramet-et-suez-choisisent-dunkerque-implantation-usine-recyclage-batteries-vehicules-electriques