Honda and SNAM expand battery recycling partnership

Honda Motor Europe and SNAM have agreed to expand their battery recycling partnership for end-of-life batteries from Honda's hybrids and electric vehicles

Honda Motor Europe and SNAM (Société Nouvelle d’Affinage des Métaux) have agreed to expand their battery recycling partnership to advance the sustainability of the Japanese car maker’s hybrid and electric car batteries. As per the new pan-European agreement, Honda dealers will be in touch with SNAM over its digital platform for the collection of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. It has already been declared that SNAM will arrange for the collection of these batteries from its centralised storage hubs within 15 working days.

It’s worth mentioning that Honda and SNAM have been working together since 2013 to dispose of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries according to the European Union’s environmental standards. The expansion of this partnership will see SNAM collect Lithium-ion and Nickel Metal Hydride from Honda’s network of dealerships spread across 22 countries in Europe.

Once these batteries have been collected, they will be analysed for their capacity to serve in 'second-life' applications, such as renewable energy storage uses like earlier, or to see if they need to be dismantled to extract valuable metals from them for recycling. This will be done with the application of hydrometallurgy techniques, which will be used to extract materials such as lithium and cobalt from the unit if it is no longer suitable for secondary use. These materials can then be reused in the production of new batteries, colour pigments, or as additives for mortar. Other materials that are extracted while dismantling a battery such as copper, metal, and plastics can be recycled as well for reuse in different applications.

'As demand for Honda’s expanding range of hybrid and electric cars continues to grow so does the requirement to manage batteries in the most environmentally-friendly way possible. Recent market developments may allow us to make use of these batteries in a second life application for powering businesses or by using recently improved recycling techniques to recover useful raw materials, which can be used as a feedstock into the production of new batteries,' said, Tom Gardner, Senior Vice President at Honda Motor Europe.

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