Northvolt announced that its recycling program, Revolt, has produced the first lithium-ion battery at the Northvolt laboratory in Vasteras, Sweden. The battery uses a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode made of metal recovered through recycling battery waste.

100% of nickel, manganese and cobalt are recovered from old batteries. The Swedish battery start-up said that with the support of many automakers, including Volkswagen, recycling can recover up to 95% of the metal in the battery to a purity level equivalent to that of fresh materials.

The performance of the new battery is comparable to that of batteries produced from newly mined metals.

"The recycled nickel, manganese and cobalt metals used in batteries are recovered from battery waste through low-energy hydrometallurgical processing, which involves the use of aqueous solutions to separate metals and separate them from impurities."

The next step will be the construction of Revolt Ett, a gigabit recycling plant under development, adjacent to the Northvolt Ett super plant in Skeleftå, Sweden.

It is estimated that Revolt Ett can recycle up to 125,000 tons of batteries per year, which is enough to supply Northvolt Ett up to 30 GWh of new batteries with metal (50% of 60 GWh production).

"After demonstrating the effectiveness and efficiency of its recycling process, Northvolt is now turning its attention to expanding recycling capabilities to achieve its goal of producing batteries with 50% recycled materials by 2030.

To ensure this, the company's first gigabit recycling plant, Revolt Ett, which is being developed near the Northvolt Ett super plant in Skeleftå, Sweden, will expand beyond its initial design and can recycle 125,000 tons of batteries per year. "

Construction will begin in the first quarter of 2022, and the plant should begin operations in 2023.

Revolt Ett will recycle lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt and other metals (copper, aluminum) and plastics. Incoming materials will come from scrap batteries from electric vehicles and production waste from Northvolt Ett.

"In addition to becoming the largest battery recycling plant in Europe, Revolt Ett will also become the only large-scale facility in Europe that can recover lithium other than nickel, manganese, cobalt and other metals. The materials recovered from Revolt Ett will be supplied to the neighboring Northvolt Ett The battery uses recycled metal to make a super factory, which can produce 30 GWh of batteries per year (half of Northvolt Ett's total annual battery output).

In addition to transporting nickel, manganese, cobalt and lithium metals directly to the Northvolt battery production process, Revolt Ett will also recover copper, aluminum and plastics from its recycled batteries and materials-all of which will be recycled through local third parties Into the manufacturing process."

Well, this sounds like a win-win idea for both the business and the environment. Of course, there will not be many electric car batteries at first, but over time, it should be a circular economy, just like the case of lead-acid batteries.