Tozero’s plant outside Munich was set up in six months and is capable of producing 100 tons of pure lithium carbonate from old batteries each year.
Tozero has opened a new industrial plant for the domestic production of lithium and graphite, calling itself a European first.
The new facility in Munich is able to process 500 tons of waste per year by turning unused lithium ion batteries into household lithium, graphite and nickel-cobalt compounds on an industrial scale.
Such materials are considered important for use in electric vehicles, grid-scale storage and industrial electrification, but Tozero said Europe and the US currently rely heavily on imports from China.
It said its technology could provide Europe with a “domestic source of key materials” for companies across the construction, ceramics and lubricants sectors, with other building materials and industries to follow.
“Europe still lacks the key infrastructure needed to build and grow its own energy conversion and battery industry,” said Sarah Fleischer, founder and CEO of Tozero.
“Our technology, which has now reached 25,000 times, changes this by enabling us to recycle obsolete batteries and produce these materials on an industrial scale for the first time.”
The plant in the chemical park of Gendorf, outside Munich, was established in six months and is able to produce 100 tons of pure lithium carbonate from old batteries – which Tozero equated to “saving 10,000 electric car batteries from landfill” – each year.
The company said that the Gendorf plant will now make a plan for a complete trading center, planned for 2030 and capable of processing 45,000 tons of battery waste per year.
“In just under four years, Tozero has gone from lab tests to industrial operations and we continue to prove that recycling is not just an experimental project – it can be delivered on a scale that can provide Europe with a home, a circular supply of essentials whose future continues,” added Fleischer.
The Munich-based company was founded in 2022 by Fleischer – an entrepreneur and mechanical engineer – and Dr Ksenija Milicevic Neumann, a metallurgist.
Tozero says its “proprietary, acid-free hydrometallurgy process” allows battery recycling to take place in a “single, superior cycle”, ensuring that the recovered materials are clean enough to be recycled back into production and creating a circular European supply chain.
It has completed pilots with companies such as BMW and works with partners in 10 European countries.
Last month, R3 Robotics – founded in Luxembourg but based in Karlsruhe, Germany – raised €20m to scale its automated dismantling of electric vehicles to store and recycle valuable materials such as lithium batteries.
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