A new agreement between battery recycler Revolt Ett and Swiss engineering company ABB details the supply of electrification solutions for the recycling facility. This includes switchgears and variable speed drives.
This is ABB’s first order from the battery recycling industry. No financial details were disclosed. Swedish battery maker Northvolt owns Revolt Ett and ABB has been its major electrification and automation partner since 2017.
Revolt Ett is designed to handle 125,000 tons of battery production waste and used battery products annually. Northvolt said it makes it the largest plant of its kind in the world.
Closing the loop is an absolute must for the emerging global battery industry. The price level and availability of nickel, manganese, lithium, and cobalt are two of the drivers behind the plans of Revolt Ett in Skellefteå.
Northvolt has its lithium-ion battery plant nearby. The new recycling unit will handle batteries from all sources, including customers, partners and the open market.
The recycling process consists of discharge, dismantling, crushing and sorting, and a hydrometallurgical process. It generates raw materials from the black mass for new cathodes for battery cells and separates graphite from the valuable metals.
Many tests have been performed to secure the purity of the recycled materials and in 2021 Northvolt Labs managed to produce the first cathode from 100% recycled metals. Revolt Ett’s ambition is to reduce the loss of metals by 95%.
Researchers at Chalmer’s University of Technology in Gothenburg and a team at Northvolt Labs in Västerås in Sweden together developed the technology for sustainable battery recycling. Next step will be commissioning and start-up of the facility.
On Tuesday, Northvolt announced the raising of $1.2 billion to finance plans for its further expansion in Europe and North America. It is an extension of the $1.1 billion convertible note signed in July 2022.
Northvolt Dwa has assembled its first energy storage system products in Gdańsk, Poland, as part of its commissioning process. Northvolt has been producing battery systems at a small-scale facility located in Gdańsk since 2019.
It has now built a new 25,000 square metre plant for assembling cells into battery systems for energy storage and industrial markets. Support is from the European Innovation Fund and deliveries are expected to commence later this year.
