From Waste to Resource – How Hansgrohe is bringing Palladium back into the circular economy
The Hansgrohe Group has been honoured with the 2026 German Award for Sustainability Projects for its process for recovering palladium from process water generated during plastic electroplating. With this award-winning technology, the valuable raw material can be recovered directly during the production process and returned to the raw material cycle. In addition, the project is among the finalists for the 2026 Circularity Champion Award in the Recycling & Recovery category; the winner will be announced in October in Düsseldorf.
Recovering Low-Concentration Precious Metals
Palladium is used in the electroplating process to make plastic surfaces conductive for subsequent metal plating. During the production process, small amounts of this precious metal end up in the rinse water. The challenge: the palladium, present in very low concentrations, must be recovered from a complex mixture of substances with a high degree of selectivity. This is achieved by passing the pretreated process water through special adsorbent fleece, which selectively binds the palladium and thus enables its recovery.
Since 2018, Hansgrohe Group process engineers have gradually optimised the technology for industrial use. The German Textile Research Centre Northwest (DTNW) made a significant contribution to the project’s success by bringing its expertise in metal recovery and the adsorbent nonwovens used in the process. Aqua Plus Wasser- und Recyclingsysteme GmbH carried out the technical implementation of the system. Today, this innovative technology is firmly integrated into the production processes of the plastic electroplating facility at the Offenburg site. The results demonstrate the potential of this circular solution: Each year, approximately five kilograms of palladium are recovered from processed water at the Offenburg site and returned to the raw material cycle. In optimised closed-loop operation, up to 82 per cent of the contained precious metal can be recovered. Compared with extracting the same amount of primary palladium, this could reduce emissions by more than 150 metric tons of CO₂ equivalents per year.
Palladium Recovery Combines Resource Efficiency with Emissions Reduction
“This award confirms that innovative production and sustainable business practices are inextricably linked. We transformed what was previously a waste stream in our plastic electroplating process into a valuable raw material cycle that reduces demand for primary palladium and cuts the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its extraction. Our palladium recovery process demonstrates how a circular economy can be successfully implemented on an industrial scale,” says Frank Semling, Chief Production Officer of the Hansgrohe Group. The project highlights the potential of closed-loop raw material cycles in industrial production processes. Furthermore, this approach offers prospects for additional applications in surface technology and the recovery of critical raw materials.
