cobalt

While electronics and EV growth is a boon, it also underscores the need for sustainable growth and practices. Battery recycling is a key component of this sustainability, with environmental, economic and social benefits.

Advancement in mineral processing and beneficiation technology remains critical for commercialisation of domestic critical mineral resources.

India is investing in facilities and infrastructure to recycle batteries and recover valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. By doing this, we can reduce our need for new materials and minimize the environmental impact of battery production.

Nitin Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Attero (India’s largest end-to-end e-waste management and Li-ion battery recycling company), shares the prospects of lithium battery recycling in India, recycling methods in use, and approaches to make the process efficient and green.

Cobalt is key for boosting energy density and battery life, but it comes with caveats: expensive, scarce, and linked to unethical mining practices, wild price fluctuations, and a tenuous supply chain. In recent years, battery manufacturers and automakers have intensified efforts to reduce or eliminate cobalt in lithium-ion cathodes. But sometimes, old habits die hard, as pv magazine’s Marija Maisch explains.

Sales growth in India’s electric vehicle market will moderate to 75% per year over the next three years, as supply constraints drive up prices of key raw materials for batteries. 

The urban mining startup has set up an R&D and innovation center focused on improving the efficiency and yield of its chemical-free technology for extracting valuable materials from dead lithium batteries. It will ramp up the facility to double it up as a fully operational metal extraction unit by the end of December.

A couple of weeks ago, Goldman Sachs sent shockwaves through battery metals markets, issuing a prediction that cobalt and lithium in particular were due for a sharp price decline in the next two years. But London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is loudly pushing back, outlining its reasons why it believes the call on lithium was wrong. Meanwhile, US analyst Wood Mackenzie says that the battery raw material chain will remain tight, but notes that recycling could help to ease the supply deficit.

Ensuring pragmatic energy storage transformation is proportional to tweaking the current battery storage chemistry. Zinc battery technology is gaining traction, changing the prevailing energy storage dynamics.

Nitin Gupta, chief executive officer and co-founder, Attero Recycling, speaks to pv magazine about the supply chain concerns for lithium battery storage manufacturing in India, current battery recycling scenario and Attero’s capacity.