Project development company Neometals Ltd. and Germany’s SMS group GmbH announced the creation of a joint venture, Primobius GmbH. The object of this enterprise is to commercialize joint recycling technology for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). In this way, valuable materials can be recovered from vehicle batteries and storage batteries for electronic devices using a sustainable process.

Intensive R&D efforts paved the way for the creation of this joint venture and resulted in a patent-pending process that was successfully tested in a pilot project. West Perth, Australia-based Neometals will lend its technical and commercial expertise, including in recycling technology, to the joint venture. SMS group's contribution will be the engineering and construction of the commercial recycling facilities. The German company also intends to handle the operation and maintenance of the equipment.

The next steps planned by the joint venture are the construction and commissioning of a demonstration plant in Europe, the further development of the process technology, the financing and the conclusion of long-term supply agreements. The demonstration plant will allow potential customers to assess the materials recovered from their own or external end-of-life batteries.