In recent years, the growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) has brought with it a surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries. As the EV market is expected to expand even further in the coming years, there are growing concerns surrounding the environmental impact of battery disposal processes and the relative scarcity of materials required to make new batteries.

Currently, most lithium-ion batteries are destined for landfills and are rarely recycled, with American Chemical Society division CAS reporting in 2022 that just 5% of the world’s lithium-ion batteries are thought to be recycled. At the same time, the need to tackle this issue has been further heightened by the EU’s proposal for a new Battery Regulation at the end of 2020 as part of its Circular Economy Action Plan, a comprehensive body of legislative and non-legislative actions aimed at shifting the European economy from a linear to a circular model.