POSCO Holdings Inc.

08/31/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 08/31/2022 20:49

POSCO builds EV battery recycling plant in Poland

PLSC(Poland Legnica Sourcing Center), a secondary battery recycling plant, opening ceremony held in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, on August 25.

Plant to collect and disassemble battery scrap and used batteries in Europe and produce 7,000 tons of black mass per year

Byeong-og Yoo, Head of the Green Materials & Energy Business Team of POSCO Holdings said "Posco Holdings will continue ESG management by expanding the recycling business."

On August 25, POSCO Holdings completed the construction of a secondary battery recycling plant PLSC in Brzeg Dolny, Poland.

The opening ceremony was attended by Head of the Green Materials & Energy Business Team of POSCO Holdings Byeong-og Yoo, Korean Ambassador to Poland Hoon-min Lim, Governor Janusz Zdziarski, Mayor of Brzeg Dolny Powel Pirek, and officials from clients and partners, including LG Energy Solutions, GS Energy, and SungEel HiTech.

Byeong-og Yoo, Head of the Green Materials & Energy Business Team of POSCO Holdings, said "The recycling business is pivotal to the virtuous cycle economy of eco-friendly batteries at the core of the secondary battery material business of the POSCO Group. We will take the lead in corporate social responsibility and secure competitiveness for secondary battery raw materials by consistently expanding the recycling business"

POSCO Holdings built the secondary battery recycling subsidiary PLSC in March last year in response to the growing secondary battery recycling market with the increase in electric vehicles and the demands of governments and major customers around the world to mandate the use of recycled materials for secondary batteries. The company cooperates with SungEel HiTech, a Korean company with proprietary technology for recycling secondary batteries, in running the plant.

PLSC, completed ten months after its ground-breaking in October 2021, is a secondary battery recycling plant with an annual production capacity of 7,000 tons. It will collect and disassemble scrap and used batteries that come out while manufacturing batteries in Europe, producing intermediate goods in the form of powder. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese will be extracted from the intermediate goods and supplied to POSCO HY Clean Metal.
*Black Mass: Black powder obtained by crushing and selectively collecting lithium-ion battery scrap. It contains nickel, lithium, cobalt, manganese, etc.

Meanwhile, the POSCO Group has been investing and developing technologies for lithium and nickel, core raw materials for secondary batteries, since it entered the business in 2010. It plans to achieve sales of 41 trillion won by building a stable secondary material value chain by 2030, producing 300,000 tons of lithium, 220,000 tons of nickel, 610,000 tons of cathode materials, and 320,000 tons of anode materials.

▲ A view of PLSC, a secondary battery recycling plant in Brzeg Dolny, Poland

▲ POSCO Holdings held an opening ceremony of a secondary battery recycling plant PLSC in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, on August 25.
(From left to right: SungEel HiTech Poland Managing Director Hyo-sung Youn, SungEel HiTech CEO Kang-myung Yi, POSCO Holdings Head of the Green Materials & Energy Business Team Byeong-og Yoo, Korean Ambassador to Poland Hoon-min Lim, Poviart Boubowski Governor Janusz Zdziarski, Mayor of Brzeg Dolny Powel Pirek, PLSC Managing Director Yang-soo Shin )

▲ POSCO Holdings held an opening ceremony of a secondary battery recycling plant PLSC in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, on August 25.
(From left to right: SungEel HiTech Poland Managing Director Hyo-sung Youn, LGESWA Executive Director Geun-tae Kim, SungEel HiTech Kang-myung Yi, POSCO Holdings Head of the Green Materials & Energy Business Team Byeong-og Yoo, Korean Ambassador to Poland Hoon-min Lim , Poviat Bowboski Governor Janusz Zdziarski, Mayor of Brzeg Dolny Powel Pirek, Deputy Mayor of Brzek Dolny Artur Michałek, POSOCO-Europe Vice President Seungmin La, PLSC Managing Director Yang-soo Shin)