The announced global capacity for recycling by 2030 is approximately 5 million tonnes per year of battery throughput for approximately 4.2 million tonne per year of EOL volumes, while currently only about 0.6 million tonnes per year is actually operational, mostly in China, Korea and the EU

Byline: Shubham Vishvakarma, Founder and Chief of Process Engineering at Metastable Materials

The rate of adoption of EVs is on an upward curve. In 2024, EV sales reached 17.6 million and are projected to exceed 20 million in 2025. Amid this surge, one question keeps arising: Will recycling scale quickly enough to match the EV surge, or are we hurtling into a waste management issue with EoL batteries overwhelming us?

The infrastructure supporting EV adoption has been growing as well. Public charge points passed the 5 million mark in 2024/25 worldwide, meaning the vehicle-to-charger ratio is also increasing along with the expansion of the fleet. The signs are clear: more batteries are entering the system, more scrap from gigafactories, thus more quantities requiring end-of-life treatment. The EV EoL wave itself, however, is set to hit post-2030 mostly. Before then, recyclers are feeding their factories with consumer electronics, some early replacements and manufacturing scrap. We have a good 5 years to perfect logistics, chemistry-specific processes, battery passport data rails before exponential volumes hit us. Can today’s recycling plants cope with the incoming wave of batteries? Positively, provided we pair readiness with disciplined execution.

The announced global capacity for recycling by 2030 is approximately 5 million tonne per year of battery throughput for approximately 4.2 million tonnes per year of EOL volumes. Currently only about 0.6 million tonne per year is actually operational, mostly in China, Korea and the EU. RMI’s Battery Mineral Loop suggests that global recycling capacity can handle all EoL batteries and scrap through 2030, but this is contingent on 100% collection and feedstock capture. That’s all tall order given there is much leakage in reporting, informal dismantling, export currently.

The policy support has strengthened in recent years. The EU Battery Regulation mandates recycled content in EVs and batteries by August 2031, where certain percentages of Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium are used for manufacturing anew. The regulations even hike the number by 2036 and set efficiency and recovery targets. The metal behind the mandate now will dictate where black mass flows. The US and Europe are also implementing policies to keep scrap domestic. Policy ambition should be matched by the speed of granting permits and financing, or else projects could be bottlenecked despite having strong mandates.

Another question is how much future metal can recycling realistically supply? The IEA states that by 2050, battery recycling can meet roughly 20-30 per cent of lithium, nickel, and cobalt demand. The share of recycled materials may increase if collection improves and design for recycling is widely adopted in the EV industry. Other studies indicate that a scaled and mature recycling sector will cut the need for new mining by 25-40 per cent by 2050, having a huge impact on the cobalt and copper supply chains. This also has geopolitical implications and reduces dependency on high-risk mining regions and supply disruptions.

Technology is being tailored for differing chemistries and the operational winners will be the ones whose plant design is aligned with the realities of feedstock available. In the case of Integrated Carbothermal Reduction, we have engineered the process to handle high throughput high yield of copper and other critical metals from all types of lithium ion chemistries. As lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) chemistries gain more share in the mass market, the economic drivers will shift, due to the LFPs being less metal value dense, to strategic importance of lithium recovery and phosphate management. Our technology is adaptable, allowing us to optimise for different chemistries while maintaining safety. The future will belong to those who tune processes to chemistries along with investing in pre-processing and collection logistics to ensure incoming volumes are safe, sortable and value dense.

Looking closely at regional realities, China is leading the EV revolution by miles, leading in chargers, refining, cathode/ anode capacity and recycling throughput. Europe has high ambition and regulatory measures but slower financing has been slow and energy costs are high, meaning it may risk under-delivering in their goals. The US is scaling with OEM-recyclers contracts, but utilisation will be tested by actual recovery rates. India is building 2/3 wheelers rapidly, along with charging infrastructure. The policy support has also been gently nudging, creating a space for innovation and manufacturing in a nascent industry. But collection infrastructure, recycling operator licensing must grow.

If global recycling can support volumes if fully utilised, then what are the constraints? Collection discipline is core. Batteries move across marketplaces and borders, and informal dismantling risks lessening value. In some markets, over 30 per cent batteries exit formal recycling through informal dismantling. EPR enforcement, battery passports and possibly gate-paid take-back contracts can be a fix to this bottleneck. Safe logistics is the second issue. Every battery requires safe handling, sorting and storage during movement. Making transportation safe is essential to maintain value density; hence, pre-processing centres are a great investment to make the modules safe for transport and to conserve value density. High, consistent recovery is the third challenge. Actual recovered metal, not just tonnes of batteries processed, must be auditable (e.g. how much copper, lithium and other critical materials are reclaimed and pushed into supply chains) to win regulator and OEM trust.

What infrastructure should recycling build? First, pre-processing hubs near high scrap volumes is a no-brainer. It can make materials safer for transport, separate value-dense intermediaries for large-scale refining and simplify refining plant operations. Secondly, refining lines should maximise recovery of all critical materials while flexibly handling prevalent chemistries. Contracts are inked by verified recovery data and regulatory trust when it comes to numbers. The moat lies in contractual discipline, QA/ QC and having the correct permits, not just heavy capital influx. Post-2030, when over 4 million used EV batteries will be in circulation annually, scaling proven technologies using capital influx would support the adoption curve.

Hence, is the world ‘ready’? Yes, it’s ready enough if we are resilient. We must execute on current policy and what our current technology promises, secure financing for strategic infrastructure, and commercialise high recovery technologies. Only then will announced recycling capacity support EoL EV volumes by 2030. By 2050, recycling could provide up to 1/3rd of the battery metal demand, and that’s a hell of a contribution. If recyclers keep building straightforward collection, logistics and innovating efficient high recovery technology, along with policy and funding support for scaling, the future will be smoother sailing.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.