Eramet has suspended its ReLieVe battery recycling project in Europe, pending a solid and sustainable economic model in Europe.

We remain convinced of the need to develop a circular economy for critical metals on European soil, and end-of-life battery recycling will be a key element in this future value chain.

But we have to face the reality of the market: the electric vehicle battery value chain in Europe is having a difficult start. Today, given the very slow ramp-up of battery factories, we are not in a position to secure supplies of raw materials to feed our factory project. And downstream, there are no customers for recycled metal salts, as no European cathode precursor projects have been confirmed.

The solid and sustainable economic conditions for such a project are therefore not met, and we have decided to take the necessary step of suspending the project until further notice. We will, however, continue to study the market fundamentals required to make such a project competitive.

—Geoff Streeton, Director of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development

Eramet had been working in partnership with Suez since 2018 on the ReLieVe project, a two-part process for recycling electric batteries:

• Upstream of the process, which consists of dismantling batteries, crushing and separating their components to produce black mass;

• The downstream part of the process involves treating black mass to extract strategic metals, and producing them in the form of battery-grade salts or solutions.

One of ReLieVe’s challenges was also to recycle graphite. Graphite is recovered during the first stage of the hydrometallurgy process, with the aim of recycling it. Other battery constituents, such as copper, aluminum and various types of plastic, are also separated, processed and recycled in the appropriate manner, along with any impurities likely to “pollute” the black mass.

A demonstration plant was inaugurated in November 2023 at Eramet Ideas in Trappes. The production plant would have been located in Dunkirk, and was scheduled to come on stream in 2025 for the upstream part (black mass production) and 2027 for the downstream part (refining).