Valmet Automotive and Fortum, one of the leading players in the European energy sector, have entered into cooperation to ensure safe and sustainable recycling of all non-conforming battery materials from Valmet Automotive’s battery plants in Salo and Uusikaupunki.
Sustainability is a top priority for Valmet Automotive, with a goal to minimize the environmental impact of operations. The battery recycling cooperation now signed with Fortum contributes to the development of a value chain based on circular economy and sustainable development, for which both Fortum and Valmet Automotive received funding this year from the EU battery industry innovation project IPCEI.
Fortum provides world-class recycling and waste management services to complement Valmet Automotive’s sustainable battery production. With their unique and innovative solutions, Fortum can recycle up to 95 % of critical metals in lithium-ion battery’s black mass with a low-CO2 process, allowing recovery of lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel for reuse.
– We are proud to collaborate with Valmet Automotive, a leading service provider for automotive industry. The collaboration enables us to recover raw materials from the battery production process in the most sustainable way, allowing for critical metals to be fed back into Finland’s battery value chain to create new EV batteries, says Tero Holländer, Head of Business Line Batteries, Fortum.
Valmet Automotive’s growing production volumes at the Salo plant and the production start of the new battery plant in Uusikaupunki this year emphasize the importance of a sustainable solution for material recycling. The scrapped non-conforming materials are collected at the Valmet Automotive plants and transported by Fortum for safe and efficient recycling.
– We consider it as part of our corporate responsibility and an essential part of our commitment to sustainable production that we not only produce the batteries in a CO2 neutral way, but that we also take care of the best possible solutions for recycling the batteries. In Fortum we have found an excellent partner for this, says Olaf Bongwald, CEO, Valmet Automotive.
Besides the battery material recycling in Finland, the cooperation of Valmet Automotive and Fortum has already expanded to the Uusikaupunki, Finland car plant in waste management. Both companies are now exploring possibilities to extend cooperation to Valmet Automotive’s locations in Germany in order to be closer to key players in the fast developing EV sector.
SOURCE: Valmet Automotive
