cylib receives 26.1 million euros in EU funding for battery recycling plant

The battery recycling company cylib has secured 26.1 million euros in funding from the European Union. The funding from the ERDF/JTF program of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will enable the construction of one of the largest recycling plants for lithium-ion batteries in Europe at CHEMPARK Dormagen.

We are very grateful to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Union for this funding and for supporting our mission to produce sustainable materials for batteries and make European value chains more resilient.

Dr. Lilian Schwich, co-founder and co-CEO of cylib

The funding was confirmed as part of the "Produktives.NRW" program. It will finance the first construction phase of the industrial plant, which will process so-called black mass, an intermediate product from shredded batteries. We reported on the 11 million RW funding as early as November 2024. The aim is to recover critical raw materials such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese and thus contribute to Europe's geopolitical independence with regard to these strategic materials.

Technology with high recovery rates

The OLiC (Optimized Lithium & Graphite Recovery) process developed by cylib enables the recovery of over 90% of critical materials from spent batteries - with 80% lower CO₂ emissions compared to primary recovery. The water-based technology is now being transferred from the pilot plant in Aachen to industrial scale for the first time.

Once fully expanded, the plant, which will go into operation in 2027, will be able to process up to 140,000 e-car batteries per year. This corresponds to 60,000 tons of used batteries or 20,000 tons of black mass. In view of the boom in electromobility assumed by the scale-up, the demand for battery materials is growing rapidly. With its approach, cylib shows how recycling can replace primary mining and strengthen Europe's geopolitical independence.

cylib is a holistic and sustainable battery recycling scale-up founded in Aachen in 2022 by Dr. Lilian Schwich, Paul Sabarny and Dr. Gideon Schwich. With over 120 employees, the company emerged from research work at RWTH Aachen University. The aim is to produce sustainable materials for batteries and strengthen resilient European value chains.