Fortum Opens Major EV Battery Recycling Plant in Finland

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Finnish energy major Fortum Oyj (Espoo, Finland) has commissioned what it is calling Europe's largest closed-loop hydromet­al­lur­gical battery recycling facility in Finland.

The plant, according to the company, will "greatly ease the European battery manufacturers' rising demand for sustainable battery materials, helping to reduce Europe's dependence on imported critical battery raw materials." Located at Harjavalta, the facility is positioned as the largest recycling plant in Europe in terms of recycling capacity, and it is also the first commercial-scale facility in Europe for hydrometallurgical recycling.

"With our new low-CO2 hydrometallurgical plant in Harjavalta, we are able to sustainably produce the materials urgently needed for new EV lithium-ion and industrial-use batteries," says Tero Holländer, Head of Business Line, Batteries, Fortum Battery Recycling. "Thanks to our cutting-edge hydrometallurgical technology, 95% of the valuable and critical metals from batteries' black mass can be recovered and returned to the cycle for the production of new lithium-ion battery chemicals."

The plant came online just weeks after the company received the green light to start operations at a new EV battery recycling facility in Kirchardt/Baden-Württemberg, in southern Germany. It will be a hub for "end-of-life" lithium-ion batteries and battery production waste materials. The closed-loop system will begin with pre-treatment services at Kirchardt, then the mechanical recycling process in Ikaalinen, Finland, and finally the hydrometallurgical metal recovery in Harjavalta.

"The demand for recycled battery materials is set to increase dramatically over the next five to ten years as the green energy transition speeds up," said Holländer. "At the same time, the new European Union (EU) sustainable batteries regulation requires battery, electronics and automotive manufacturers to gradually increase the amount of recycled materials in batteries. The manufacturers need to prepare for the legislative changes now, as the first minimum levels of recovery for materials such as cobalt, nickel and lithium will come into force in 2026. Having invested in recycling technology and capacity at an early stage, we are set to meet this demand. We are proud to be the forerunners investing in sustainable solutions for the future."

Industrial Info is also tracking a number of other key battery-recycling projects in Europe, including the recent startup of Stena Recycling's (Gothenburg, Sweden) first industrial recycling facility for lithium-ion batteries at Halmstad in southern Sweden. The new plant has an initial yearly recycling capacity of 10,000 tons and will handle battery material collected and pre-treated in all Stena Recycling's existing facilities and processes in Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Norway, Germany and in Italy. "Coming EU regulation, combined with the increasing electrification of vehicles and other products means that there will be huge pressure to find solutions to recycle vehicle batteries and create circular value chains. This investment will give Stena Recycling a key role in the process of electrifying the automotive industry," commented Marcus Martinsson, product area manager for batteries at Stena. Stena said it is prepared to scale up the operation and predicted that within ten years it will be handling "at least five to ten times higher volume than what we can handle today."

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