A joint venture between U.S.-based Ascend Elements and Polish company Elemental Strategic Metals has officially opened a recycling plant for electric vehicle batteries in Zawiercie, Poland.
The plant, announced earlier this year, has the capacity to process 12,000 tonnes of used lithium-ion batteries annually, equivalent to about 28,000 electric cars.
Ascend Elements and Elemental plan to continue expanding their operations in Poland, with the construction of a new facility capable of extracting lithium set to begin in Zawiercie this autumn. The current plant dismantles, discharges, and crushes EV batteries to produce “black mass,” a material containing valuable battery components. The black mass will be further processed into battery-grade materials in the facility’s expansion, expected to be operational by 2026.
“This is a significant milestone for Ascend Elements, representing our first commercial-scale battery recycling facility in Europe,” said Mike O’Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements. “Expanding into Europe will allow us to better service our customers locally and help the industry comply with new EU rules requiring recycled material in new batteries.”
Following the launch in Poland, the joint venture plans to build an even larger recycling plant in Germany. The German facility, with an annual capacity of 25,000 tonnes, aims to recycle about 58,000 electric car batteries, making it the largest lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Europe. The location of the German plant has yet to be determined.
