BLC is building Europe’s first fully automated plant at its site in Magdeburg, with Bosch Rexroth supplying the technology. The site will test used batteries from different manufacturers, deep-discharge them, and prepare them for shredding. The new plant’s workpiece carriers will each transport battery materials weighing up to 150 kilograms at a speed of 18 meters per second. This means that it will take less than 15 minutes to automatically discharge eight lithium-ion batteries from electric cars. Bosch claims automation will greatly increase the speed of recycling: with the manual process currently used, it takes up to 24 hours to deep-discharge a battery.

The model project in Magdeburg is the first to use this patented Bosch discharging method: battery modules will be chemically deactivated, ensuring that further processing can take place without voltage. The residual energy in the modules can be used to operate the recycling system. In addition, the site will use existing Bosch industrial technology for battery production on-site, including flexible, modular transfer systems and the ctrlX AUTOMATION control platform. Each year, the Battery Lifecycle Company site will recycle up to 15,000 metric tons of battery materials. The plant is scheduled to go into operation in summer 2023.