Felicity Bradstock

Felicity Bradstock is a freelance writer specialising in Energy and Finance. She has a Master’s in International Development from the University of Birmingham, UK.

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• Used electric vehicle batteries still retain significant capacity and can be categorized for reuse, repurposing, or recycling to recover valuable minerals.
• Recycling EV batteries involves shredding them to produce “black mass,” which contains critical minerals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt that can be used to make new batteries.
• Expanding EV battery recycling and reuse can help mitigate supply chain pressures, reduce reliance on limited mineral resources, and address human rights issues associated with mining operations.

The production of lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles (EVs) requires vast quantities of critical minerals, including graphite, lithium, cobalt, copper, phosphorous, manganese, and nickel. There is a finite supply of these minerals, and, with the global demand growing, automakers must use EV batteries to their full potential. Simply disposing of the batteries once they run out of juice could mean throwing away huge amounts of critical minerals every year, when they could be put to good use. 

Approximately 17 million battery-electric and hybrid vehicles were sold in 2024 and early forecasts suggest that in 2025 this figure may increase to 20 million. Almost 20 percent of all cars sold today are electric, a figure that is expected to continue growing as governments worldwide implement policies restricting the use of fossil fuel-powered vehicles and as automakers continue to expand their EV offerings. 

Contrary to what many may think, once an EV battery gets to the “end of its life”, it may still have enough power to put to other uses. Many EV batteries have a shelf life of around 12 to 15 years, although real-world data suggests it could be up to 40 percent longer than this in practice. This means that some of the first-generation EV batteries are now reaching this point. 

While there is significant potential for the reuse and recycling of batteries, collecting accurate data on battery performance, such as how fast they degrade, is difficult. In addition, if a battery has a fault or is severely degraded, it could catch fire when opened or if used for an unsuitable role, suggesting the importance of collecting more data. 

Used EV batteries can be put into three categories in terms of their state of health. High is for batteries with 80 percent or more of the original capacity. These batteries can be refurbished for reuse in similar applications or resized for smaller vehicles. Medium refers to batteries with 60 to 80 percent of their original capacity, and these batteries can be repurposed for alternative applications. Low is for batteries with less than 60 percent of the original capacity. These can be shredded and refined to recover the critical minerals trapped within them to produce new batteries. Researchers have seen recent success in estimating the health of used EV batteries even without the performance data, although this would further enhance these estimates. 

Battery recycling is becoming increasingly popular as producers work to recover the critical minerals stored in EV batteries, rather than losing valuable resources. EV batteries can be shredded to produce a dark powder called “black mass” – the substance that remains after batteries are pulverised. The powder contains plastic and steel, which must be separated to leave behind critical minerals, which include lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite. These minerals can be used to produce new batteries, supporting a supply chain that has become increasingly strained. While battery recycling is notoriously difficult, the practice is becoming more common, as companies understand the benefit of reusing the finite minerals. 

The critical mineral mining industry is underdeveloped and is dominated by just a few world powers, such as China. The development of commercial mining activities in mineral-rich locations is not keeping pace with the growing demand for these minerals for batteries, renewable energy projects, and other uses. Meanwhile, over half of the world’s nickel comes from Indonesia and two-thirds of all cobalt can be found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which both have ongoing human rights issues associated with mining operations. This demonstrates the importance of reusing all the critical minerals found within existing batteries. 

In the U.S., former President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has supported the projects of Li-Cycle, a company established in 2016 that recovers critical materials from lithium-ion batteries. Li-Cycle has plants in Canada, the U.S., and Germany, and has drawn attention to the potential for battery recycling. Projects have also been launched in the U.K. For example, Altilium launched recycling operations in the south-west of England in 2020, although the Covid-19 pandemic meant that the facility only became fully operational in 2022. 

In Europe, a European Federation for Transport and Environment 2024 survey suggested that end-of-Life batteries and scrap from battery gigafactories across the region have the potential to provide 14 percent of all lithium, 16 percent of nickel, 17 percent of manganese, and a quarter of cobalt demand by 2030. These materials could be used to produce between 1.3 and 2.4 million EVs in 2030, up to 10 million in 2035, and up to 15 million EVs by 2040. 

There is significant potential to expand EV battery recycling and reuse on a global scale. However, the costs associated with developing operations and the lack of skills required to perform these complex operations in many countries have so far deterred companies from investing in battery reuse and recycling activities. Moving forward, battery makers could significantly alleviate supply chain pressures for critical minerals by investing in battery recycling, which could be supported by new government policies and financial incentives to reuse and recycle.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

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