Chemical giant BASF has set its sights on the battery recycling business and has continuously deployed in the European market

Chemical giant BASF is also eyeing the battery recycling business.

Recently, Italian commercial vehicle manufacturer Iveco Group announced a cooperation with BASF to provide recycling solutions for lithium-ion batteries for Iveco Group's electric vehicles. BASF processes the collected batteries into black powder through mechanical processing, from which it extracts and recovers key raw materials for battery manufacturing, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium.

According to reports, BASF has established Europe's first battery material production and battery recycling center in Schwarzheide, Germany, which will be responsible for organizing and managing the entire recycling process of lithium-ion batteries used in Iveco's electric vans, buses and trucks.

Dr. Daniel Schönfelder, President of BASF's Catalysts business unit, said: "The cooperation with the Iveco Group is our first agreement in the field of battery recycling for electric vans, buses and trucks, and marks an important step in expanding our battery recycling business into the commercial vehicle segment. This allows us to further strengthen our collection network in Europe and forge ahead in this booming market. Our recycling solutions are designed to support the European market in building a closed loop and meet the EU's ambitious circular economy promotion policies under the EU Battery Law. ”

Battery recycling is one of BASF's key focus sectors in recent years, and with the entry into force of the EU Battery and Waste Battery Regulation, BASF's battery recycling footprint in Europe has accelerated.

On January 9, BASF announced a partnership with Stena Recycling, a Swedish recycling company, to recycle lithium-ion batteries in Europe. The collaboration is focused on developing and improving the production process of ferrous powders to achieve higher recoveries of metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, thereby supporting the construction of closed-loop solutions for the European EV battery market.

On August 17 last year, the EU Battery and Waste Battery Regulation came into effect, regulating the entire life cycle of batteries from design, production, use and recycling. The regulation requires the carbon emissions of many types of power batteries sold and used in the EU to the whole life cycle, including increasing the overall recycling ratio of power batteries from 45% in 2023 to 73% by 2030, and using at least 16% recycled cobalt, 85% recycled lead, 6% recycled lithium and 6% recycled nickel in the production of new batteries.

The European Commission expects recycling to account for 51% and 42% of the EU's cobalt and nickel demand respectively by 2040.

In addition, the regulation also requires that the scrapped old batteries of new energy vehicles sold must be transported back to the place where the vehicle is produced for recycling.

The European power lithium battery recycling market is rising, triggering the layout of a number of related industrial chain enterprises.

In June last year, BASF inaugurated its first cathode (cathode) materials plant in Europe in Schwarzheide, in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, which will equip 400,000 electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries per year. BASF said the plant has already sold out orders for the next few years and will supply battery makers and automakers in Europe.

In addition, BASF has set up a local plant for the commercial production and recycling of black powder, which is scheduled to start production in 2024. Black powders contain large amounts of important metals used in the production of cathode active materials, including lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese, and are the basic waste material for the recycling of used batteries and the production of batteries.

According to reports, BASF will establish a complete battery recycling value chain at the Schwarzheide site from 2024, which will be responsible for the production of black powder, the recycling of black powder and the production of cathode (cathode) materials.

In the Chinese market, BASF has been cooperating with Shanshan Co., Ltd. (600884) and CATL (300750) since 2021, and has built a closed-loop business covering raw materials, cathode material precursors, cathode active materials and waste battery resource utilization.

BASF's Battery Materials & Recycling is part of BASF's Catalysts business unit, which also includes Environmental Catalysts, Metal Solutions and Process Catalysts. In 2023, BASF achieved sales of €68.9 billion, down 21.1 percent year-on-year, and net profit of €225 million, up €852 million year-on-year.