EMR strengthens the EV revolution with new battery recycling centre
Summary
The Birmingham facility was officially opened on 18th September 2024 with a special ceremony attended by some of the largest names in the automotive sector, including partners from the RECOVAS consortium such as Bentley, Jaguar Land Rover, and BMW. These high-performance EV batteries will be essential in enabling the automotive industry to decarbonise in the years ahead, so it is vital that they can be sustainably reused, remanufactured, or recycled to safeguard the valuable resources in them, including cobalt, lithium, and nickel. As the UK’s largest end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycler, EMR has embraced this challenge as part of its long-standing commitment to sustainability, and investment in groundbreaking technology. The multi-million-pound plant follows EMRs involvement in the RECOVAS consortium, a collaborative research and development project launched in 2020 with grant funding from the Department for Business and Trade via the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC). We use market-leading systems and software to de-risk the process of discharging the cells prior to recycling, and our high-voltage testing team is led by former Jaguar Land Rover EV battery technician Sanjay Kundu.