Innovation in recycling

Umicore is the world’s leading recycler of complex waste streams containing precious and other valuable metals, including from batteries and catalysts. Umicore’s closed-loop business model will be a powerful strategic differentiator for the foreseeable future.

Umicore’s urban mine to wheel cycle starts by ensuring responsible sourcing, either from sustainable sources or from recycled feed from our own recycling facilities. Our innovative state-of-the art recycling plants meet the highest environmental standards and can recover high percentage yields of non- ferrous metals that are then used in our production processes. We produce best-in-class high technology materials for a range of clean mobility applications. Any production scrap created during production goes directly back into the cycle, including intermediates and production scrap created along the value chain. The loop starts again once Umicore receives end-of- life products.

The efficient recycling of precious metals bearing catalysts from automotive applications and from chemical processes has always been a core competence of Umicore Precious Metals Refining. The continuous growth of the catalyst market has led to increasing complexity in catalyst composition, physical state and variety of catalyst types. This creates new challenges for the effective recycling of these catalysts and initiated a number of research programs to treat increased and more complex volumes of recyclable material more efficiently.