Sarah Fleischer & Ksenija Milicevic Neumann, Co-founders at tozero: Building Europe’s first battery recycling plant

tozero is building Europe’s first industrial battery recycling demonstration plant, taking lithium-ion battery recycling from research to a live facility running in the real world.Sarah Fleischer and Ksenija Milicevic Neumann, Co-founders at tozero, share how the team built and launched the plant from scratch, now processing end-of-life batteries into critical materials like lithium and graphite, and using it to prove the process continuously as they push toward scaling full industrial plants across Europe.The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here:https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjkSponsors:SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction0:32 - Launching the demo plant1:40 - From idea to building the plant3:12 - Why battery recycling now5:22 - What the plant produces6:49 - Proving the process at scale7:55 - Scaling beyond the demo plant9:44 - Pilots and customers12:21 - Market demand and supply chains13:08 - Rapid prototyping approach14:35 - Scaling to future plants18:20 - Hiring and building the team