RECOVAS, led by EMR Metals Recycling, is a partnership between EMR, three major vehicle manufacturers; Bentley Motors, BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, the University of Warwick, the Health and Safety Executive, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, Autocraft Solutions Group, Connected Energy, which repurpose electric car batteries, and uRecycle, which will develop the UK’s first commercial scale recycling facility for automotive battery packs.
Under current EU law and post-Brexit, manufacturers retain responsibility for the safe disposal of electric car batteries. There are already 620,000 pure electric vehicles on Britain’s roads, with that number rising to 1.06 million* when plug-in hybrids are included. This project aims to provide a standardised and reliable route for recycling and repurposing lithium iron car batteries at a scale that can cope with the expected sales of electric vehicles in the UK.
The project started in January 2021 and will run for three years, by which time the partners expect the circular supply chain to be operating commercially.
Remanufacturing is the process of repairing and re-engineering existing batteries so they could potentially be used in new cars. Reuse involves giving batteries a second life in stationary storage to help balance the use of the electricity grid during peak use and optimise the use of renewable energy and other applications. The new supply chain will help all partners to triage batteries when they arrive at approved end-of-life vehicle treatment facilities across the UK for either remanufacturing, reuse or – where this is not possible – recycling.
Connected Energy second-life battery energy storage system, E-STOR.
Roger Morton, Managing Director for Technology and Innovation at EMR, said:
