Bamo Technology Hungary Kft., the investor of the cathode material plant planned for Ács, has submitted its application for an environmental permit, the company’s representative informed the locals at the last meeting of the Ács working committee.

The working committee on the investment in the cathode materials plant in Acs met in March. Its members include the mayor of Ács, the notary, several members of parliament, the mayors of neighbouring municipalities, representatives of local NGOs and BAMO Technology Hungary Kft., the company building the cathode materials plant in Ács with an investment of €1.3 billion. At the meeting, a representative of the company gave an update on the project and answered questions raised in recent weeks.

Ferenc Fülöp, Director of Public Relations of Bamo Technology Hungary Kft. started his briefing with the completion of the archaeological excavation of the project area on 13 February. The archaeologists of the Hungarian National Museum found traces of an Árpád-era village with a total of 11 houses – the 4th largest such find in Hungary.

The settlement may date back to the XI-XII century. The experts have removed all the finds and will continue to study them for at least another year. After that, they will be sent to the Tata Museum, from where they will be available for a display in the Acs.

The project was granted preliminary planning permission in December 2023, so excavation and the deep foundations of a hall building on the site, covering 41,000 square metres, have started. The company also submitted its application for an environmental permit to the Komárom-Esztergom County Government Office on 1 March. This permit is a condition for applying for a full building permit. The details of the application for the environmental permit were summarised by Ferenc Fülöp for the members of the working committee. Unlike industry practice, the application does not contain a classified part, the main body of the application is over 200 pages long.

In response to a question, the Director of Public Relations explained the production process again, stressing that battery production and cathode production are two completely different production processes. The inputs and outputs are fundamentally different, as is the technology used. To produce cathode material, two types of raw materials are needed: lithium hydroxide and precursor, which is a kind of homogeneous metal hydroxide with nickel, manganese and cobalt atoms in the metal lattice.

Under current Hungarian legislation, NMC, a mixture of nickel, manganese and cobalt, is not considered a hazardous substance. Nevertheless, it will be handled with the utmost care throughout the whole process in Ács. Lithium salt, on the other hand, is classified as a hazardous substance and will therefore be handled with the care required by law.

Thanks to advanced process design and technology, cathode production is safe and risk-free. BAMO handles, transports, stores and uses the materials in a closed chain, in a safe environment and in compliance with strict safety standards.

The materials are loaded and moved automatically by driverless forklifts, without human contact. The bags are lifted by crane into bins on the top of the three-storey production line, after which the materials are repeatedly mixed, crushed and compacted. The material is placed on ceramic trays and passed through an electric kiln before being washed, dehydrated and dried.

The technology as a whole is sealed, there will be no dust in the plant. High-efficiency dust extraction and separation is used in the rooms. The finished cathode material is also placed in double-layer big-bag sacks and transported by automatic forklift to the warehouse, where it is transported by truck.

Filtered air is discharged from the equipment in three stages through 33 chimneys in the plant. The first two circuits of the air treatment system’s three-loop filtration system will contain a HEPA air filter and the third circuit will contain a water scrubber. The air released to the outside will thus meet all limits and contain only such small particles of dust, precursor, cathode, lithium salt and mixtures of these that the substances will diffuse immediately into the atmosphere and will not settle anywhere. Water vapour from the water used to cool the equipment may still be released into the atmosphere, but this does not come into contact with the materials being produced and is therefore not contaminated at all. In response to a question, Ferenc Fülöp added: “The emissions come out of the chimneys in the form of particles of 0.3 microns. A calculated value for the quantity of the emission is given in the permit application, and the actual emission is expected to be a quarter of this, according to the Director of Public Relations. BAMO’s key objective is to comply with the ever tightening regulations and the company is at least 10 years ahead of these regulations in the technology it uses.

In response to a question, a separate air separation plant is being built in the north-eastern part of the plant to produce oxygen, nitrogen and argon. This does not belong to BAMO but to another international company. More information on this will be provided shortly.

Ferenc Fülöp added that the disaster management had explicitly requested BAMO to collect and clean the rainwater on the site. The company will do so, even though this would be neither technologically nor legally obligatory. 100,000 square metres of rainwater will be collected, from the building, roads and pavements. The meeting was told that the move was welcomed by local people, who saw it as a confidence-building measure.

Ferenc Fülöp said that the plant site does not fall within the aquifer protection zone and its operation will not have any impact on the local soil or groundwater. Groundwater status will be monitored by 12 monitoring wells, from which groundwater samples will be taken regularly and tested by an accredited laboratory.

Several members of the working committee stressed that there was also a local demand for the testing of settling dust, and that the public would be reassured if this was carried out by a company independent of BAMO. István Szentirmai, mayor of Ács, stressed that the issue of the local monitoring system would be on the agenda of the next meeting of the Ács council.

Also in response to a local request, Ferenc Fülöp confirmed that the company supports the holding of open days during the construction period, subject to prior registration. In June, the project could have a building permit, and from then on, a day and a few hours could be set aside each week to welcome interested parties.

In response to a question, the Director of Public Relations said that BAMO will select the main contractor for the project in March and will recommend local companies. Several companies have already applied to BAMO.

As for the hops extracted from the construction site, Ferenc Fülöp said that they are still open to selling the surplus, but they have to pay the land protection fee of HUF 250 per cubic metre and arrange for transport. A call for applications has already been published in the Ácsi Hírek, with a minimum quantity of 10 cubic metres.