Kion Group to recycle batteries with Canadian company

The Kion Group has signed a deal with Li-Cycle, a Canadian lithium-ion battery recycler.

Under the agreement Li-Cycle will recycle lithium-ion batteries from Kion’s material handling brands using a proprietary  submerged shredding technology. The agreement, which is for an initial period until 2030, has designated Li-Cycle as Kion’s preferred global recycling partner to ensure that batteries are recycled sustainably.

Andreas Krinninger, member of the Executive Board of Kion Group AG, and Elewout Depicker, VP Commercial and Corporate Development EMEA of Li-Cycle Corp. will be working together in future on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. (Photo: Business Wire)

Kion currently has a global fleet of more than 1.7 million industrial trucks, including forklifts and warehouse trucks. Li-Cycle expects to commence recycling of the manufacturer’s batteries at its facility in Germany, with start-up expected in mid-2023.

“With this strategic partnership, we are taking an important step towards the circular economy that we want to implement for our products,” said Henry Puhl, chief technology officer at Kion. “The collaboration with Li-Cycle will further strengthen our position in the area of sustainability.”

According to Andreas Krinninger, member of Kion’s executive board, Li-Cycle’s process enables up to 95 percent of the mass of a lithium-ion battery to be recovered. The critical minerals contained in those batteries can then be used to manufacture new batteries.

“This makes us one of the pioneers in the material handling industry in the field of recovery and recycling of lithium-ion batteries,”he said.

Li-Cycle is building facilities around the world to facilitate battery recycling. It uses a hub and spoke model where batteries are recovered and taken apart in the spokes and the materials are then processed into usable metals in the hubs.

Li-Cycle’s first European spoke will be located in Germany and will use the company’s ‘Generation 3’ spoke technology. It is expected to be the largest spoke facility to-date, with processing capacity for 30,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery material per year, including main line and ancillary processing capacity.

Kion’s batteries will initially be processed in the German spoke, with the potential to also use the company’s newly announced spoke being developed in France. This new spoke will be located in Harnes, in the northern part of the country, where large global automotive OEMs have an established presence, and where plans to build three battery gigafactories have recently been announced.

Li-Cycle is also developing a ‘Generation 3’ Spoke in Norway, which is expected to have processing capacity of up to 10,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery material per year.