A battery recycling plant is to be built on the Eastmoor industrial estate after councillors approved plans for a facility that will recover lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper from used batteries. Circuline Materials, a company formed by two former university researchers, says the plant will process up to 8,000 tonnes a year once fully running.
The batteries, from electric cars, bicycles, power tools and laptops, will first be discharged and dismantled, then shredded into a fine powder known as black mass. A chemical process will then separate out the valuable metals so they can be sold to companies that make new battery components. The firm says it can recover more than 90 per cent of the key metals.
Chief executive Dr Imogen Rourke said demand for recycling would grow quickly as the first generation of electric cars reached the end of their lives. "Right now, many spent batteries are shipped long distances to be processed," she said. "It makes far more sense to handle them close to where they are collected."
Safety concerns addressed
The plans drew objections from some residents, who worried about fire risk. Damaged lithium batteries can catch fire, and several people raised concerns at a public meeting in the summer. The company has agreed to store batteries in separate fire-proof bays with sprinklers and thermal cameras, and the city fire service was consulted on the design.
We take fire safety more seriously than anyone, because a fire would end our business before it started.
The plant is expected to cost around €38m and create 90 jobs, with construction starting next year. Circuline says it has already signed agreements to take spent batteries from a regional bus operator and two vehicle dismantlers. Planning conditions limit deliveries to weekday daytime hours and require noise monitoring at the site boundary.