Tesla Motors has launched a comprehensive strategy to recycle its industry-leading battery packs throughout Europe.
At the end of their long life, Tesla will recycle its battery packs at Umicore’s UHT facility in Belgium. The Brussels-based materials technology company will use the expended pack material to produce an alloy that will be further refined into cobalt, nickel and other metals.
After that, Umicore will transform the cobalt into high grade lithium cobalt oxide, which can be resold to battery manufacturers. One of the few byproducts of their environmentally-friendly approach is a clean inertized slag containing calcium oxides and lithium. The slag goes into the production of special grades concretes.
Umicore’s battery recycling technology allows to save a minimum of 70 percent on CO2 emissions at the recovery and refining of these valuable metals. So it can substantially reduce the carbon footprint for the manufacturing of Lithium-Ion batteries.
