A few days before Christmas Michael Liebreich , CEO of Liebreich Associates, posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) about batteries:
Batteries are often described as resource-intensive. With a 95% proven recycling rate and a 10yr life, over 50% of battery minerals mined today will still be in use in 130 years. Add 5% performance improvement per cycle, and they will be delivering services forever. Boom!
The point was that batteries are in fact very resource efficient especially compared to the fossil fuels. Lets embrace that and invest heavily. It will only be better from here.
If there was anything that required more energy at that moment it was the servers in X data centers. Within a few hours there were some 150 comments and over 1,000 repostings. Being the founder of what is today BloombergNEF , and never afraid of causing a stir in the public opinion, Michael has more than 65,000 followers on X. A lot of fans but also a lot of people who cant wait to show how wrong he is.
The energy!
And if there is something people have opinions about, and as it appears, have a lot of data to share on, its battery recycling. Batteries seems in many peoples minds to be something of the most polluting and resource inefficient technology human kind has ever invented, made to finally leak toxic chemicals in a landfill near you. Together with the batteries CO2 footprint caused by energy intensive production and child labour used in the mining of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, battery recycling, or rather the lack of it has always been the dark side or the dirty secret of the EV.
One of the most common and actually well documented facts is that only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled or even worse that 95% of the batteries are going to landfill.
For anyone who knows only a little about recycling and batteries its easy to understand that this is far from correct.
In Europe, where about 25% of all lithium-ion batteries historically have been sold, batteries that can easily be removed from devices usually have a high collection rate and e-waste companies must remove and separate batteries from the devices they are collecting. These batteries contain up to 20% cobalt which is a valuable metal currently trading at $28,000 per tonne which is more than three times more valuable than copper and 14 times more valuable than lead. In the hands of scrap companies and metal processors no one will obviously miss the chance to recover this.
Mobile batteries sorted at Cirba Solutions in Michigan, USA (photo Hans Eric Melin)
Industrial batteries (including EV batteries) are completely banned from landfill in Europe and as they in the US are classified as universal waste, which means that they should be handed over to a processor of hazardous waste, the same thing basically applies there.
In China the cobalt-containing battery cells we usually have in our phones, so called LCO batteries, currently trade for around $5,000/tonne and even LFP batteries, known in the market to not contain any valuable materials, trade at around $1,000 per tonne.
Whats a tonne of batteries? Its about 3,000 laptop batteries. Or modules from three Tesla Model 3. Yes, you may have to work a lot providing service to thousands of people but its certainly better than collecting paper or plastics. And luckily we have e-waste and car salvage companies that are well organised to do it.
Still people believe that these batteries are disposed of in a landfill. This when the incentives to collect lithium-ion batteries are in fact very strong in most markets:
You can make a lot of money and you dont go to jail.
But what happens if we ask ChatGPT how much of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. This is the answer I get:
The reason why ChatGPT gives this answer is that there seems to be a strong support for this out there. Go to almost any recycling startups website or check their pitch decks. The number will be there. Ask the US Department of Energy. They used it to push their initial program for EV battery recycling. Ask hundreds, maybe thousands of researchers who have published paper on battery recycling. They stand by that number.
The origin and the widespread adoption of the 5% rate
Over the years I have written a lot about the origin of the 5% recycling rate which goes back to two publications where none of the statements in fact supports the rate. At lest not in the way it later has been used.
The origin of the 5% reycling rate and 95% landfill rate and how it made its way to a wider audience
The first version originates from a press release in from EBRA, the European Battery Recycling Association, as its interpreted in a report from Friends of the Earth.
From the report of Friends of the Earth,
The original press release is here (thanks @Agustín Blanco and Michael Liebreich for retrieving it!)
In a way this number is correct, although it's the collection rate, not the recycling rate. Based on the EU Battery Directives formula for fulfilment of the union's collection target the amount of batteries collected in was about 5% of the average of what had been placed on the market the previous three years. That doesnt however say anything about whether the batteries that has not been collected would be recycled or not. It exclusively said how much EBRA's members and affilates had been collected that year.
As most of you may know lithium-ion batteries even in portable devices usually last much longer than three years (I blush when I admit that I have charged my five year old DeWalt less than five times).
Also, lithium-ion batteries nowadays are usually built into the devices they power such as smartphones, ultralight laptops and tablets. That means they share the destiny with these devices and unlike alkaline, primary lithium and portable nickel metal hydride and nickel cadmium batteries they have a very low (usually only 10%-15%) collection rate through the traditional collection organisations.
The battery collection box at my local Waitrose. Two nickel metal hydride batteries, some alkaline and lithium button cells and the rest is alkaline AAA to D cells. (photo Hans Eric Melin)
In fact this is the very reason why only small numbers of lithium-ion batteries have been recycled in Europe and North America. Batteries go with their devices to other countries where they are reused, remanfactured and resold. When they eventually reach end of life it will not be in the markets where they originally were sold. Hence it's impossible to get to a 100% collection rate based on POM (placed/put on the market) unless the particular chemistry has a negative growth such as nickel cadmium.
Used smartphones in market for reused phones in Shenzhen, China (photo Hans Eric Melin)
The second version is completely false. Originating from the paper Current and Prospective Li-Ion Battery Recycling and Recovery Processes by Heelan et al from the number of 95% of lithium-ion batteries going to landfill is found in the abstract but cannot be retrieved in the actual paper.
From the abstract of Current and Prospective Li-Ion Battery Recycling and Recovery Processes in The Journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, by Heelan et al
In fact the closest number the authors present is a collection rate of 9% in Europe, which is described as bad, but still would be almost 100% better than what they evenually claim. More importantly, to claim that batteries end up somewhere (landfill) only because they cant be found where you expect to find them is just wrong, Im sorry but if you want to know whats in a landfill you have to check.the landfill.
From the preface of State of the art in reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries - A research review, by Melin,
Today the report is cited by 107 other research papers but not necessarily for what I wrote in the preface obviously.
I have used Circular Energy Storage Research and Consulting s own reports to try to explain, discussed with researchers and authorities, brought it up in presentations in conferences and not least through social media where I have some wonderful followers who help me to set the record straight when the alarmists sound. Among my favourite research contacts I count Gavin Harper , Linda Gaines and Oliver Heidrich , who not only are some of the best and most reputable reserchers in the field but also strongly contributed with their own works to provide a better understanding about the state of recycling.
It hasn't helped much though. The number keeps coming up. And there are two things that fascinates me.
The first thing (which also is highlighted in the flow chart above) is that the numbers are rejuvenated and enhanced over time by added words and expressions like currently, global, more than (when talking about landfill) or less than (when talking about recycling rate). The words are casually thrown into the text and suddenly the recycling rate both moves in time by more than 10 years and also gets worse. Because both numbers could be dated to around and none of them are claimed to be global in the original sources. Neither did it say "less than" 5% or "more than" 95%.
Still that happens almost by itself. Like in Sheth et al, in The Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Process from a Circular Economy PerspectiveA Review and Future Directions from .
Globally, less than 5% of LIBs are recycled, while in India alone, over 50,000 tons of LIB waste is generated annually [5,6]. Some unrecycled batteries may be used in second-life applications such as energy storage systems. Still, most unrecycled batteries generally end up in landfills, contaminating the land and groundwater reserves.
That batteries in a landfill would contaminate groundwater reserves is in itself a remarkable claim as landfilling after all is a controlled waste management treatment method aimed at making sure no contamination is happening. It is sometimes difficult for people to separate landfill from dumping but the difference is luckily huge. Just check in countries like the United States, UK or Hong Kong.
Even ChatGPT seemed embarrassed over the fact that its latest check was from and wanted to point out that things might have happened since then. A sign perhaps that AI after all is more intelligent but is still limited to what humans have produced. In the research community the numbers instead get eternal life.
The second thing is that even if the authors in rare cases find contrasting data they seem obliged to refer to previous numbers even if they might understand that they are incorrect. Instead the numbers are used and presented just like different findings.
Like in Zorin et al, Acid-Assisted Separation of Cathodic Material from Spent Electric Vehicle Batteries for Recycling, also from :
There are contradicting reports on the current state of recycling of LiBs ranging from 95% going to landfill [5] to almost a 60% recycling rate [6]; this, however, poorly contrasts with what can be achieved when the correct legislation is in place, as witnessed for lead-acid batteries [7]."
Again we see that the claim of 95% landfill rate is referred as a current state although its from a paper (Heelan et al) written in using five to seven year old data. However now it has moved to . The contradicting number refers to a paper by Pagliaro and Meneguzzo from in which they are referring a LinkedIn article by myself. And being the author (unfortunately I fail to find which the original post is) I can only say that the number is not interpreted entirely correct. The 60% refers to the amount of batteries available for recycling compared to how much that reached end of life. It says nothing about how much of the end-of-life batteries that eventually will be recycled.
What fascinates me though is that despite that it is possible to check and find that the claims are baseless, researchers chose to include them. In this case, where the research results in fact has nothing to do with recycling rate, it maybe would have been better to just not mention it at all.
The real recycling rate and the damage of untruths in research
OK, so fair enough, but why is this even important? If researchers needs a number to set the scene for the research, is that so bad? That some recycling startups make their pitch a bit more interesting, isnt that what we all do when we want to market our products, companies or ourselves? VCs and private equity companies know this already, dont they?
Before I answer that I will just try to answer another question you might have if you have joined me this far: how much of the lithium-ion batteries are actually recycled?
It is very important though to make a clear distincition between different kind of recycling rates and the difference between what we can verify and fionally what is a likely number today and in the future. As a response to the emotional X conversation that Michael Liebreich started I offered some explanations in a thread to why I think recycling rates actually are close to 90% or even higher.
Click the article to go to the thread
So back to why I think the 5% recycling rate is damaging.
First of all it actually provides high octane fuel for all sceptics to electric vehicles as well as any organisation that would prefer a slower growth for EVs and batteries. I am not saying that we should avoid the critical questions about electrified transport, just that it should be based on real facts. In this case its not.
The meagre 5% recycling rate has been powerful munition for the oil and gas industry, parts of the automotive industry as well as for lead-acid, flow battery manufacturers and fuel cell proponents. I am sure it has contributed to serious delay in both peoples adoption of EVs and in development of policies supporting EVs.
Secondly there is a risk our society doesnt get it priorities right. Below is a chart from Circular Energy Storages latest update on recycling capacity compared with our forecast for material available for recycling from our data platform CES Online.
Chart from CES Online, January
Its a massive gap caused by billions of dollars entering the market, both from private and public sources. Especially in the West the narrative has been that the main reason for lack of recycling has been lack of technology, something that has motivated funding of both technology development and capacity build-out in a rapid pace. And as countries and provinces dont look at eachother but rather only want to see jobs secured in their own jurisdiction we get a compounding effect of capacity when country after country, province after province or even county after county want to see their recycling plants and their 100- jobs per plant.
It has also contributed to legislative actions like the EU Battery Regulation which as an incentive for a perceived underdeveloped recycling sector mandates cell makers to have a certain recycled content in batteries. In a rapidly growing market this is quite controversial. First of all because there is at least a theoretical risk that recycling this way could have higher priority than reuse, despite the fact that reuse is placed higher in the waste hierachy. Ironically it is also something that put Chinese and South Korean material makers in better position than their European counterparts as they have much better access larger amounts of recyclables. Why? Because they are the two most important battery and battery material producing countries in the world giving recyclers both access to large amount of production scrap and good-paying downstream buyers for the recycled material. Our initiative to explain this on a wider scale is found in this Science article: Melin et al Global implications of the EU battery regulation
While an oversized capacity isnt necessarily something bad for the market at large we will see examples of public funding going down the drain and we might also see failures from companies that just try to grow too fast or too big and eventually dont get anywhere. With overcapacity comes lower margins. With lower volumes comes a stronger need for working capital which adds to the already ambitious capital expenditures that recycling companies plan for.
Goto RE TECH to know more.
Thirdly. Personally I know the battery recycling market very well. I follow it on a daily basis and have done so for more than 15 years. But I dont know so much about nano technology, about medicine, nutrition or climate. If the research is so wrong in my area, how is it in the areas I dont know anything about?
We deserve a research we can trust, that take the society forward and help us expand our horizons. It cant only be about writing papers which support the own research field or serve as a way to attract more funding for doing the same thing, over and over again. If we cant trust research who should we then trust?
Other myths, misunderstandings overinterpretations in battery reuse and recycling
Also. Its actually not only about the 5% recycling rate. Related to it there are also a number of other truths which are often referred in research with highly limited evidence:
The first one is that batteries in electric vehicles reach end of life after 8-10 years In fact there is almost no evidence for this except that many battery warranties are eight years. Instead we have data showing that EVs will remain on the road for more than 15 years even if the battery is far from perfect. In fact we are only two years from being right as we follow the stock of EVs from very closely.
Again the effect is that forecasts for recycled materials far too often are too high, leading to even bigger capacity/supply gap. The difference in need for working capital over five or even ten additional years is massive.
The cute Citroen C-Zero from proudly parked in Hampstead in London in (photo Hans Eric Melin)
Another casual "truth" is that batteries which reach 80% state of health will be removed from their vehicles. That is just not how it works. Who would pay for that? Who says 80% is not good enough? Would people be forced to change battery? And isn't 80% of 75kWh more than 100% of 24 kWh?
Besides technical life time a battery lifecycle really is all about value. Value of the application and value of the battery. A vehicle will reach end of life when its not economical to repair it. A battery can remain in a vehicle even with 30% state of health, you just have to use it differently. This misunderstanding affects both reuse and recycling forecasts.
From Nissan Leaf user group on Facebook
Another one. That batteries that are not recycled instead must have gone to waste Most batteries are not available for recycling because they dont remain in the market. Export of devices for reuse, as well as export of used EVs is a much bigger cause of low recycling volumes than batteries thrown in the waste. As discussed above this has always been the case for used electronics but really accelarated with the smartphone, tablet and ultralight tablets. Because the batteries are rarely replaced and the devices have high value on the global reuse market.
The same is true for electric vehicles which we have spent a lot of research on, showing that both end-of-life vehicles and older used EVs are exported to other markets incentivised by low custom tarifs and no VAT. This Wired article which I am happy to have contributed to tells this story maybe better than any other.
359 Chevy Bolt EVs, which only has been sold in the US and Canada, currently available in Ukraine on one of the biggest auto markets
One very common perception is also that a battery that wont be reused in an energy storage application then will be recycled instead only because an ESS company prefered to use new batteries instead. That is like coming to a conclusion that there is no market for Louis Vuitton bags only because most people don't buy them.
Many times the reason why used EV batteries arent used in energy storage applications is not that they are worth to little but rather too much. Simply because there is a large number of different reuse applications, not least in vehicles, that generate more value than energy storage for the owners of the batteries. They will pay more for batteries and make it unsustainable for ESS companies to buy them.
Tesla Model S modules mounted old VW Beetle at EV West in California (photo Hans Eric Melin)
One of the most damaging myths which I think finally now is fading away is that certain recycling technologies are completely novel and that the West is leading the way. Here I have been pointing out for years that recycling for sure can become better and more efficient but that recyclers in China and South Korea have been operating on industrial scale for more than a decade. They operate signficantly larger plants, have more expertise, mature technology, high level of automation and can pay more for material due to both higher efficency and better downstream markets.
Leaching workshop at lithium-ion battery recycler in Zheijang, China (photo Hans Eric Melin)
Still a majority of research papers which describes the battery recycling area keep studying and referring 10-15 year old flow sheets of pre-treatment processes or even research projects in Europe and North America contributing to an image of an immature Western centric field in need of rapid research and development. This become especially apparent when there in extremely few cases are any references to recyclers in China or South Korea.
And right now the development is not only very fast in China and South Korea but also in Europe and North America. But the development is primarily happening in well funded companies which don't necesarily publish data in academic journals. This development needs at least to be discussed in research as papers otherwise only continue to describe technology from the early s.
One more long-lived myths in the West is that lithium cant be recycled This is just not true. Lithium has not always been recycled. Due to a low market value for many years it was challenging for several recyclers but it was a matter of economics, not technical capability. Today lithium recovery is driving a large part of the industry and will determine where batteries will be processed. During the time when the lithium carbonate price was extremely high in and the recovery of lithium was key for recyclers to be able to get hold of waste batteries at all.
Lithium carbonate recovered from waste batteries at recycler in Jiangxi in China (photo owned by Hans Eric Melin)
The recovery of lithium is also key to recycling of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and many of LFP batteries are in fact recycled by lithium companies. But if people believe lithium recovery does not happen or is unprofitable it leads us to the perception that LFP can't be recycled or that they are too uneconomical to recycle. Not even this is true, at least not in the the markets where LFP is dominant, that is in China. More on this here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hansericmelin_is-recycling-the-achilles-heel-of-lfp-batteries-activity--tfJJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Lastly I am a bit concerned about the so commonly shared idea that pyrometallurgical processes categorically are inferior to mechanical pre-processing methods, both from a recovery and carbon footprint point of view. While it is true that a lot of the black mass in Europe, North America and Japan has been treated in processes where lithium hasn't been recovered there has been a lot of development among companies in the US, Europe and not least South Korea in this field.
A lot of the research reviews that include pyrometallurgical processes discuss the processes based on 20 years old patents and flowsheets. Our research of real recycling companies in the world shows that reductive processes in fact are up and coming and most likely might have as good CO2 footprint as many processes that use mechanical pre-processing. At least if the final usage of graphite and organics is taken into consideration.
Again, the fact that pyrometallurgical pre-treatment is more robust for different form factors and chemistries is almost casually described just like it's not important. But in markets where large amounts of batteries need to be consolidated from many sources it is important. I am not saying that pyrometallurgical treatment methods are superior. Just that any method should be analysed based on its individual merits, not what was done 20 years ago.
We will share more about this in our upcoming report on lithium-ion battery capacity which will be published the 15th February.
The report is available to our subscribers of CES Online. Read more at
To summerize I come across all of these perceptions in both research and in presentations by companies with almost no data behind that back the actual conclusions. The common thread is a lack of understanding of how the market really works which leads to pure speculation. Just like its speculation to assume that if batteries are not collected for recycling they end up in a landfill.
One reason for this is that there is a lack of cross scientific research where expertise in metallurgy, chemistry and chemical engineering meets expertise in for instance business, behavioural science and geography.
As a member of the program committee in the Swedish Battery Fund through which we every year fund research in battery development and battery recycling in Sweden I have pushed for these kind of projects and have had great support from the rest of the committee. Still it has been difficult to attract high quality projects in these new areas.
I hope that we finally get there though. Because this big energy transition we currently are in, comes with gigantic challenges, not least geopolitically but also financially.
With those challenges I dont think we can afford to navigate after maps which so badly represent the actual terrain. We need to raise the bar.
On the barricade since
Its possible to pay someone to cart off old batteries and dispose of them as a hazardous waste stream. But this adds cost to the battery life cycle. Thats because traditional methods for breaking down batteries, including pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, are expensive and time-consuming and dont recapture all of the valuable material inside.
Now that the growth trajectory is clear for battery-powered cars, the clean energy industry needs to figure out how to deal with the ensuing waste. Lithium-ion batteries contain materials that shouldnt be dumped in a landfill, and old batteries can catch fire if they arent cared for properly. But so far, battery recycling technology and processing capacity have lagged far behind manufacturing.
Lithium-ion batteries already power phones, laptops, scooters, e-bikes and toothbrushes. But global battery manufacturing is growing rapidly to serve the newly voracious demand for electric cars, which hit a record 8.6 percent of global new car sales in .
The public is finally buying electric vehicles in substantial numbers, a pivotal step toward decarbonizing transportation. But without changes to how the industry does business, the surge in EVs could eventually leave the planet awash in the batteries that make them run.
Hydrometallurgy uses chemistry to reclaim metals after mechanically shredding batteries into little bits (see video below). This sometimes requires painstaking manual labor to break down large packs beforehand.
Pyrometallurgy involves chucking batteries into a furnace to burn off much of their content; the smoldering remains get sold to smelters that use the trace nickel and cobalt.
These methods dont recover anything close to the amount of material needed to make a new battery, even though all the fixings for a new battery exist in an old battery. Old-school recycling facilities often dont even reclaim the lithium they just werent set up to do that.
Now, though, a number of startups are commercializing cleaner and more efficient recycling techniques, and building dedicated lithium-ion battery recycling factories at an unprecedented scale. Many of the founders come armed with experience they gained from prior stints in battery manufacturing. And in just the last year or two, theyve raised a boatload of cash from investors who sense an opportunity to make battery recycling profitable.
Ive worked in this space for 22 years, and last year looked significantly different than the previous 21, said Shane Thompson, president of long-running recycling company Retriev Technologies. As for the next decade? Buckle up, he said.
Recycling capacity has lagged battery production in part because it takes years of operating an EV before its battery pack needs disposal, and electric vehicles are still a pretty new mass-market trend. But this new cohort of recyclers doesnt have to wait for electric vehicles to hit critical mass. Theyve got plenty to hone their techniques on with existing consumer electronics waste, plus the scrap from new battery manufacturing.
It is absolutely a solvable problem, Li-Cycle CEO and co-founder Ajay Kochhar said of the recycling challenge. Companies like us exist, and our whole premise is to make this economically and environmentally beneficial.
Heres a sampling of five up-and-coming startups making battery recycling more efficient, clean and profitable. If they succeed, theyll help prepare the world for the EV revolution.
ABTC
: Take batteries apart the way they are put togetherInstead of shredding or burning batteries, why not run the manufacturing process in reverse?
Thats the elegant insight that informs how the American Battery Technology Company approaches battery recycling. The team there knows how to put batteries together because they helped Tesla set up its Nevada Gigafactory. One of Ryan Melserts jobs was to vet prospective recyclers to responsibly dispose of waste from the battery manufacturing process.
After seeing the state of the industry in North America and how there was such a void of competitive and responsible operations, thats what led my team and [me] to leave Tesla and fill that void, said Melsert, now CEO and CTO of ABTC.
Melsert and company decided to enhance battery recycling by programming off-the-shelf manufacturing machines to disassemble instead of assemble. The machines take battery packs and break them back down to cells, and then pick apart the anodes, cathodes and separators.
At that point, the company applies its chemical know-how to extract the materials needed to make new batteries. (The team also uses these techniques to harvest new minerals from the companys mining operations.) The mechanized process increases the amount of recovered materials while reducing the costs of processing.
By doing it strategically, weve been able to dramatically lower the amount of chemical agents we needed in the separation process, Melsert said. That reduces a dominant cost of mineral recovery: buying the acids, caustics, solvents and oxidizers that extract useful materials.
ABTC then refines the materials for use in new batteries and sells them as a domestic source of critical minerals.
The company has tested its techniques in lab settings and in high throughput trials at equipment manufacturer sites and currently is building its first pre-commercial-scale plant in Reno, Nevada. That one will take in 20,000 tonnes of batteries per year if it works, the next plant will use the same extraction technologies and processes at 10 times the scale.
Battery recycling is solvable, but it still requires putting effort in and building commercial-scale facilities, he said.
Traditional battery recycling does not revolve around recovering the ingredients to make new batteries. In many cases, the goal is to pull out just the nickel and cobalt and forget the rest. When it comes to EV batteries, though, this approach means wasting the lithium, so a number of startups are experimenting with more thorough processes that allow them to extract this valuable mineral.
Sometimes these things are obvious, but they just take time to develop and scale up, Li-Cycles Kochhar said.
His company, which has more than 300 employees, opened a factory in Arizona in May that breaks down battery packs in a newly efficient way.
We dont dismantle, we dont discharge our Arizona plant takes a full pack into the shredder, Kochhar said. That shredding happens with batteries submerged in a solution to tamp down fire risk. The facility sifts out aluminum, copper and plastics, which get recycled. That leaves a mishmash of battery materials known in the industry as black mass.
Li-Cycle will send black mass from Arizona and other spoke sites to a hub facility under construction in Rochester, New York. There the company will use hydrometallurgy to isolate the metals that can go into new batteries. Instead of trashing much of the recovered battery material and then wondering why recycling isnt profitable, Li-Cycle tries to get everything out.
In the long term, Li-Cycle aspires to make recycled battery materials cheaper than the mined alternative.
Thats totally possible, and that absolutely will help in terms of all of these pains that have been incurred in the scale-up of batteries, Kochhar said.
Are you interested in learning more about lead acid battery recycling plant supplier? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!