EU backs Cylib with €26m to build one of Europe’s largest battery-recycling plants

Cylib's co-founder, Lilian Schwich, developed a new water-based process for recycling lithium-ion batteries when she was a researcher at RWTH Aachen University.

Just three years since spinning off that research to found Cylib, the company she started with her husband Gideon Schwich, and their research partner Paul Sabarny, employs more than 120 people.

Last year, Cylib raised €55m in Series A funding in a round led by World Fund and Porsche Ventures. And now, the startup has secured €26.1m in EU funding to build a large industrial recycling facility at Chempark, an industrial park for the chemical industry in Dormagen, western Germany.

The site, scheduled to open in 2027, is set to be one of Europe’s biggest lithium-ion recycling plants.

The grant is provided via North Rhine-Westphalia through the ERDF/JTF programme – and the company will use the money to finance the first stage of construction.

Water-based process

The Aachen-founded company claims its process can recover over 90% of critical raw materials – including lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese – while cutting carbon emissions by 80% compared to primary mining.

The new facility will, according to the company, have the capable of processing up to 140,000 EV batteries a year.

"Compared to other battery recycling processes, we produce 30 percent fewer emissions. Additionally, our core process is water-based, unlike other methods that either rely on chemicals or can’t recycle lithium or graphite at all. This gives us a significant advantage," Schwich previously told Impact Loop.