RECYCLING NEWS
Clarios expands recycling with acquisition of Spanish recycler Metalúrgica de Medina Clarios has acquired Spanish battery recycler Metalúrgica de Medina, the international automotive battery company told Batteries International on March 23. Metalúrgica, which recycles car batteries and other compounds to obtain pure ingots and other alloys, has an annual capacity of around 59,000 tonnes of recycled lead. Clarios’ vice president of operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Jose Domingo, said the acquisition gave the company “access to high-quality input materials and tolling in
key regions where we operate. “The acquisition further centralizes and vertically integrates our business to reduce supplier risks and lower costs.” Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Clarios said the acquisition was “a natural extension” of its existing partnership with Metalúrgica. More than 90% of Metalúrgica’s offtake goes to Clarios. Metalúrgica is Clarios’ largest tolling partner in the EMEA region and provides tolling — the financial ar-
rangement whereby scrap metal collected by the battery manufacturer is returned and a fee paid for the lead to be recycled, ready to be reused in batteries — for all production scrap and customer cores collected from Clarios’ Spanish plants. In the EMEA region, Clarios already has nine production sites, five logistics centres, 12 sales offices and one recycling centre. Neil Hawkes, base metals principal analyst at CRU in the UK told Batteries International that companies such as Clarios have been have been pushing for
a long time to secure more lead supplies via tolling agreements for their battery manufacturing plants. Hawkes said: “Now that they have acquired the smelter, is this a tacit admission that it is easier to buy a smelter rather than toll with it on a third-party basis? “The hugely fragmented nature of scrap collection across Europe, with lots of small-to-mid-sized players along the chain, makes it difficult for big battery makers like Clarios to make inroads in lifting lead volumes through tolling arrangements.”
Work starts on UAE lead battery plant and processing operations Ground has been broken for a combined lead acid battery manufacturing plant and recycling facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Italian group Seri Industrial announced on March 22. The company behind the Dubai Industrial City project — Dubatt Battery Recycling — is a joint venture between Dubai-based Regency Group and Seashore Group. Dubatt is investing AED110 million (about $30 million) in the project. Meanwhile, Dubatt is discussing a potential technology partnership with Seri group company, Faam Italia, to also produce advanced lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles and other applications. The 154,000 square-feet recycling plant is to be operational by January 2023, while the advanced lead acid battery plant is set to start operating within the next two years. Regency Group corporate management chairman, Shamsudheen Bin Mohideen, said the battery plant would be commissioned over the next two years and would produce a “made in
the UAE battery brand”. The battery plant will be built on a 70,000 square-feet site. Dubatt director Hasique Pandikadavath said the small to medium sized recycling plant would start with a 10-tonne-hour battery crusher, a four-cubic-meter fuser and four refining kettles. The initial recycling capacity would be up to 25,000
tonnes of used lead acid batteries annually, producing 14,000 tonnes of lead ingots and 1,750 tonnes of plastic chips to be sold to battery manufacturers, the medical sector, fisheries and other industrial sectors. There was no indication provided by the firm as how the slag from the smelting would be disposed of — an issue that has troubled per-
mitting in the region in the past. Pandikadavath said this represented the recycling of about 35% of the scrap lead acid batteries generated in the UAE each year. “We are planning to double our recycling capacity within a year of commercial production and our plant is built with this arrangement to expand.”
ABR highlights role US recyclers should play in powering energy storage future The Association of Battery Recyclers (ABR) highlighted the key role played by lead battery recycling in underpinning an expansion of energy storage in the US in new data published on March 16. ABR, the trade association for North American lead battery recyclers, gave details of the high standards deployed by the industry on a new website launched in the run-up to Global Recycling Day on March 18. ABR president Rick Leiby said: “Our country’s well established lead battery recycling system has become
34 • Batteries International • Spring 2022
the standard for creating a circular economy for all battery recycling. “As demand for battery energy storage continues to rise, the success of lead battery recycling is the benchmark for other technologies. “Batteries are critical for meeting demand growth in energy storage, for vital industries such as security, data centres, electrified transportation and renewable energy.” According to the ABR, around 130 million lead batteries are typically diverted from US landfill sites annually, giving the coun-
try a 99% recycling rate. In turn, a new lead battery typically consists of about 80% recycled material from used lead batteries. Today, 62% of the lead needed for a new lead battery made in the US is supplied by US lead battery recyclers. Leiby said: “These statistics are especially relevant in this time of supply chain disruption. The US must continue to become more self-sufficient by domestically providing the raw materials needed to maintain advanced lead battery manufacturing in the US.”
www.batteriesinternational.com
