Graphite for batteries will be recycled on an industrial scale by “tozero”

The German company “tozero” is claiming to have been able to complete a test on industrially recycled graphite within a battery cell, successfully. This is the first time that a test like this will have been completed successfully within Europe.

In the past, previous processes have been successful on a laboratory scale, however now tozero has made a major breakthrough with this accomplishment. This achievement consisted of the company recovering and recycling the material in industrial quantities.

“tozero” has made their aim clear and this aim is to produce over two thousand tons of recycled graphite on an annual basis and the company wants to have accomplished this by 2027. The company also plans to have increased the stated amount to over ten thousand tons by 2030. Making this decision and setting this aim, is being driven by the constantly increasing demand for raw materials which will be used in batteries. This is especially important now that Europe has become almost completely dependent on imports of graphite, due to the fact that China controls most of the market.

Before this breakthrough occurred, throughout most recycling processes, graphite is usually lost or even incinerated. However, with this new method, “tozero” has been able to recover over 80% of the material and the company is also able to do this without destroying the material’s structure.

The company stated that, ‘test results show that the performance of the recycled graphite is comparable to that of primary graphite.’