German battery recycling company Accurec has inaugurated a new facility at its headquarters in Krefeld to recover lithium from used batteries, marking a step forward in Europe’s efforts to strengthen domestic supplies of critical raw materials. The company said the plant uses its proprietary “CLIMA” recycling process and is capable of achieving lithium yields and purities exceeding 99%.
While Accurec did not disclose the plant’s annual processing capacity, the company had previously outlined plans in 2022 to build a facility capable of extracting lithium from up to 4,000 tonnes of used batteries per year. The new plant was formally opened this week in the presence of EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall, alongside guests from politics, business and academia. Accurec described the site as a “unique facility in Europe” for industrial-scale lithium recovery.
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“With our CLIMA process (Critical Raw Materials Recovery from Li-Battery Waste Management), we achieve yields and purities exceeding 99 per cent. This ensures that urgently needed raw materials remain within Europe, bolstering our resource resilience,” said Dr Reiner Sojka, managing partner of Accurec. The company said its thermochemical recycling process converts battery waste into a form that allows highly efficient separation of lithium with comparatively low energy and operational requirements.
Part of the new lithium recovery system was developed through the EarLi research project in cooperation with German specialty chemicals group Evonik. The project focuses on improving lithium yields from battery waste. “Using a highly selective ceramic membrane, the lithium dissolved in wastewater is separated electrochemically and isolated as high-purity lithium hydroxide monohydrate,” said Ralph Marquardt, Evonik’s chief innovation officer.
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EU officials have repeatedly highlighted lithium as a strategically vital material for the bloc’s energy transition. At the opening of the facility, Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall said, “Recycling lithium batteries is essential to meeting Europe’s demands in clean energy, digital transformation, sustainable transport, defence, and beyond. The Accurec lithium battery recycling plant stands at the forefront of this critical effort.”
The launch comes as European policymakers push to expand recycling capacity for batteries and reduce reliance on imported raw materials as demand rises with the growth of electric vehicles, energy storage and digital infrastructure.
