German recycler launches plant to cut Europe's reliance on Chinese lithium

Accurec Recycling GmbH, a German company with three decades of battery-recycling experience, opened a new lithium-recovery plant in Krefeld in December 2025. The facility currently processes about 5,000 tonnes of used batteries each year and can extract roughly 50% of the lithium, meeting the EU’s 2027 recovery target. A €5.5 million expansion will quadruple processing capacity to as much as 20,000 tonnes and aim for over 80% lithium recovery by early 2027.

The proprietary “CLIMA” method uses thermal pretreatment to make lithium water-soluble, reducing energy consumption by nearly half and cutting CO₂ emissions by more than 59% per tonne of lithium carbonate. Europe still depends on China for 65-70% of battery-grade lithium chemicals, and most black-mass is exported to Asia for further refinement, a situation Accurec hopes to change through a memorandum of understanding with AMG Lithium in Bitterfeld. The company calls for stricter EU enforcement of hazardous-waste rules and a European-sourced recycled-content mandate to close the battery-recycling loop on the continent.