TES, one of the biggest battery and electronic waste recycling companies world-wide, is going to build a factory in the port of Rotterdam, according to the company's release. European Commissioner Frans Timmermans symbolically gave the go-ahead for the construction.
It will be the first plant in the Netherlands for recycling lithium-ion batteries. In the next few years, the number of electric vehicles will be growing exponentially and so will demand for raw materials for producing batteries, especially cobalt, nickel and lithium.
Additionally, there will be a huge supply of electric vehicle batteries that need to be recycled. TES has a process in which raw materials resulting from recycling can be returned to the battery industry.
TES has the ambition to make this establishment in the port of Rotterdam a state-of-the-art location in Europe with a capacity of 25,000 tonnes. The first phase of the project will be operational in late 2022, enabling the plant to process 10,000 tonnes of batteries. Cobalt, nickel and lithium will be recovered as raw materials for new batteries.
The Port of Rotterdam Authority aims to be the frontrunner in the energy transition and the circular economy. As the largest port and industrial cluster in Europe, the port of Rotterdam can play an essential part in the efforts to meet the European and Dutch climate and circularity objectives.