Why in the News
Recycling end of life lithium ion batteries can give India a domestic source of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, for which it depends heavily on imports. The case has sharpened after the Prime Minister warned at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi against the “weaponisation of technology and critical minerals“. Recycling capacity has to be planned before spent electric vehicle batteries arrive in bulk.
What is battery recycling, and why is it a strategic resource?
- What it is: Battery recycling recovers lithium, nickel and cobalt from end of life batteries. It is like mining discarded phones and vehicles instead of ore.
- Rising demand: Transport and other sectors are shifting to electricity, so demand for lithium ion batteries is growing.
- Supply risk: The ores are scarce or their supply chains are concentrated in a few places. This exposes supply to geopolitical tensions, trade restrictions and resource nationalism (countries restricting mineral exports).
- Processing capability: China dominates the processing of critical minerals, and India lacks this capability.
- The takeaway: Recycling will not end import dependence, but it creates a mineral supply that sits inside India.
Where do used batteries go today?
- Landfills and informal channels: Batteries from mobile phones and other electronics often reach landfills or informal recycling run by kabadiwalas (scrap dealers).
- Informal recovery: Manual methods are inefficient and unsafe. They recover only 10% to 20% of the material.
- Formal recovery: Formal recycling facilities recover over 90%, so every battery in informal hands loses most of its mineral value.
How much can recycling contribute as electric vehicles grow?
- Electric vehicle stock: More than 8.7 million electric vehicles (EVs) were on Indian roads by 2025-26, so the volume of spent batteries will rise.
- Share of lithium demand: Recycling can meet about 10% to 12% of India’s lithium demand for EV battery manufacturing.
- Secondary source: Recycled material is a strategic secondary source alongside mining and overseas sourcing.
Why is building recycling capacity early a hard business decision?
- Legal foundation: The Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022 rest on extended producer responsibility, which makes producers responsible for collecting and recycling the batteries they sell.
- Planning ahead of the surge: Investing “just in time“, only when spent batteries arrive, is unrealistic for plants and logistics, so capacity has to be built earlier.
- Underused plants: Plants built early run below capacity at first, so their revenue may not cover financing costs.
- Long gestation: Recycling facilities take long to pay back, so the business is not an immediate windfall.
Challenges
- Diverse battery chemistries: Batteries use different mixes of materials, which makes mineral recovery difficult and recycling economics unattractive.
- Black mass: Recyclers stop at black mass, the intermediate powder of mixed battery metals, and do not recover the minerals.
- Difficult collection: Returning a retired battery is not easy for EV users, and a circular economy cannot scale without public participation.
- Missing standards: India lacks standards for battery characterisation, recycled mineral quality and second life use (reuse of a retired battery).
Way Forward
- Recycled share in the stockpile: The proposed national critical mineral stockpile should carry a mandated share of recycled minerals, which creates predictable demand.
- Recovery technology research: Industry and research laboratories should develop technologies with higher recovery and purity and no environmental impact.
- Standards and design: The government should set standards backed by testing infrastructure, and manufacturers should adopt “design for repurposing and recycling”.
- Take back by manufacturers: EV makers and their dealer and service networks should offer take back or buy back options that pay the user.
- Patient capital: Lenders and investors should provide long term capital to battery recyclers.
Conclusion
Battery recycling gives India a modest buffer against mineral supply shocks, provided the system is built before the batteries arrive. Whether the proposed national stockpile reserves a share for recycled minerals is the decision to watch.
Government Initiatives for Critical Minerals
- List of critical minerals: The Ministry of Mines identified 30 critical minerals in its report Critical Minerals for India, July 2023. The list has no statutory force.
- National Critical Mineral Mission: The Cabinet approved it in January 2025. It covers exploration, overseas assets, recycling, stockpiling and research.
- Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL): It acquires mineral assets abroad. Eg. A lithium brine agreement in Catamarca, Argentina, January 2024.
- Secondary recovery: A 2025 amendment to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 allowed recovery of critical minerals from tailings (ore processing residue) and waste dumps.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2025] In the context of electric vehicle batteries, consider the following elements: I. Cobalt II. Graphite III. Lithium IV. Nickel How many of the above usually make up battery cathodes? (a) Only one (b) Only two (c) Only three (d) All the four ANSWER: (c)”
