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EV Battery Recycling Could Be The End Of Mining!

Everything Electric TECH

40,146 views

In this episode, Imogen visits Altilium in Plymouth to see how old electric vehicle batteries are being transformed into brand-new battery materials, using a process that can recover over 95% of critical minerals including lithium, nickel, and cobalt.

Today, the UK imports 100% of the materials needed to build EV batteries. But by recycling “black mass”, the shredded remains of end-of-life battery packs and gigafactory waste, Altilium is producing battery-grade cathode active materials (CAM) right here in Britain.

Imogen breaks down the chemistry behind the process, Altilium's plans to scale and compares the real-world efficiency of recycling versus mining virgin materials, revealing why battery recycling could be a game-changer for the industry.

With Brexit rules of origin tightening in 2027 and tariffs looming on imported batteries, domestic recycling is becoming a strategic necessity for UK carmakers like Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan.

Is this the missing link to bolster the UK’s EV supply chain?!

0:00 - Introduction
1:20 - Inside Altilium’s Facility
1:46 - Where Does Black Mass Come From?
3:00 - Critical Minerals
3:29 - Creating Battery-Grade Lithium Carbonate
6:03 - Battery Recycling Vs Mining
8:15 - The Industrial Process
9:55 - UK’s Critical Minerals Strategy
10:54 - Brexit Factor
11:36 - JLR Partnership and Testing Recycled Materials
12:36 - Where's the Hard Science?
14:11 - Scaling Up!
14:56 - Large Scale Recycling Timescale
16:06 - Closing thoughts

Links to articles;

https://www.gov.uk/government/publica...

https://recyclinginternational.com/bu...

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com...

https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/...

https://www.automotivepowertraintechn...

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20 Comments

@stevengray5549 8 months ago

The more recycling, the better

@olninyo 8 months ago

the comparison to mining in terms of efficiency is astonishing.

@worldoflard 8 months ago

This is great to see. Recycling is such an important thing for the future, would be great to see more on recycling tech, even if not related to EVs or renewable power!

@SagrenReddy-j5p 8 months ago

Great segment. Pressure needs to be put on the ev and battery manufacturers to make the products more recyclable.

@markiliff 8 months ago

7:40 This guy is a good explainer

@Nikoo033 7 months ago

Between 2026 and 2037, there is indeed going to be supply of old EVs (15 years of life), not necessarily because they do not work anymore, but either because the batteries will have reached 70% of SoC or less or because people want to have newer models with more usable range (200 miles or so).

Beyond this, as the UK fleet continues to replace combustion cars with EVs, I am certain that Attilium and similar companies will have plenty of raw materials to work with because apparently, there are ~562000 vehicles scrapped per year in the UK for various reasons (accidents, etc).

@grahamcook9289 8 months ago

So no massive rock spoil. Now that makes sense. With recycling you have what you want, and nearly nothing you don't want.

@AdvancedPropulsionCentreUK 8 months ago

Great to hear the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK projects mentioned! This comprehensive video is a step up from our own case study, nice one EET. We've been supporting Altilium's processes in partnership with Innovate UK and Department for Business and Trade. As someone said in the comments, the more recycling, the better!

@edwardlsanders 7 months ago

This video is profoundly important as it implies that any EV bought now -- which imports materials into the UK -- will almost certainly be recycled at its end of days. This completely shifts the discussion about material dependency for the UK -- we have one-off importing of materials vs never ending importing of oil/gas.

@brianadamson6607 8 months ago

Recycling should be the basis of all economy’s

@rklauco 8 months ago

This is something the EV haters should see - especially the math about cobalt. Thanks for the video, really informative.

@AlexHallatt 8 months ago

Fascinating and encouraging. What happens to the spent chemicals used in the extraction? Are they toxic, or inert? Not that we should be exporting our pollution to areas where mining for the minerals happens.

@EugeneLambert 8 months ago

Excellent episode and great to see such an innovative UK startup getting stuck into this important work. Circular economy here we come!

@rlaxton666 8 months ago

As a big Heavy Metal fan, I am always fan of anything that leads to more "Black Mass" LOL

@WayneFawcett-v1h 4 months ago

great show, informative, hope for the future.

@CymruDad 7 months ago

That’s is great to see happening in the UK. I remember watching an EE episode (Fully Charged at the time), visiting a recycling plant in Germany. There does need to be a good healthy recycling industry, as the EV market will only grow - including trucks, planes, boats, home batteries…..

@michaelanderson3771 8 months ago

Whilst you say there is currently insufficient vehicle batteries there are literally 000's of Lithium and NMC batteries from consumer products like calculators , power tools, computers , Phones etc that could provide a current recycling opportunity for such mid size pilot plants immediately.
the complex, cost intensive component though is collection and transport of the spend and damaged batteries to the recycle centre
UK is relatively a small nation densly populated with significant E-Waste already so that distance of transport is small but the collection side is still complex.
Consider the same constraints in say Spain, or France where the population are more spread out.
The logistics side cost increase in levels of magnitude.
We see the same issues here in Aus with plastics recycling.
It is not sufficiently rewarding and requires subsidies to maintain a recycling presence .
Collection and processing costs are not viable for economic return without subsidy to minimise waste disposal by deep burial or industrial incineration.