Battery recycler Fortum Corporation of Finland is planning to expand in central Europe with a new low carbon capacity facility, to best serve the European automotive and battery industries.
Details are still under wraps.
In an interview ahead of the International Battery Recycling Congress ICBR 2022 in Salzburg, Tero Holländer, Head of Business Line Battery at Fortum’s Recycling & Waste Management Team, said a new hydro-metallurgical plant will come on stream in Finland in Q1 2023.
It uses different methods for treating battery metals. “But we also need to develop outside Scandinavia to meet the needs of this growing market, so we have chosen a central European location – to be announced next week – for our next low carbon capacity expansion, in order to best serve the European automotive and battery industries as closely as possible.”
He said Fortum’s ambition is to be a significant player in the recycled battery materials market in Europe. “The demand is very high and Fortum is bringing sustainable, low carbon, non-conventional hydro-metallurgical technologies to the lithium-ion battery recycling space.
“Our plants are all scalable in the near term to meet market needs. There are exciting, difficult technical challenges ahead, with black mass recycling as the main one currently, and we are investing and keeping an open mind about future developments,” he said.
As well as end-of-life batteries, Fortum also recycles industrial scrap and waste from the metal refining industries.
Holländer said as it is in the market for energy storage and EV charging stations, plastics recycling etc., it was a natural development for it to create a specific business line dedicated to battery and industrial waste recycling to meet the growing demand for secondary battery raw materials in Europe.
He was speaking to ICM, organiser of ICBR 2022.
Picture: Tero Holländer says Fortum will announce plans to develop outside Scandinavia
