Published: March 28th, 2023,
Last updated: May 28th, 2025
A railroad track on the edge of the forest south of the German-Polish border town of Guben, a few hundred meters from the Neisse River: freight cars filled with lithium rock from Canada are soon to arrive here. Europe’s first lithium converter is to start operations in two years on the adjacent brownfield site, where so far only a few sand mountains can be seen. The German-Canadian company Rock Tech is building an industrial plant here that will process the lithium-bearing rock into lithium hydroxide – which should be enough for 500,000 batteries for electric cars per year. Rock Tech presented the construction plans at a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday.