Critical Minerals Recycling Plant Projects

Recycling plant development for critical minerals is experiencing a surge of investment as governments, automakers, and investors recognize that secondary supply from end-of-life products and manufacturing scrap will be essential for meeting projected demand while reducing environmental impact. The recycling sector is being shaped by regulatory mandates, particularly the EU Battery Regulation's minimum recycled content requirements, by automaker sustainability commitments, and by the strategic imperative to build circular supply chains that reduce dependence on primary mining and geopolitically concentrated processing. Dozens of new recycling facilities are under construction or in advanced planning stages across North America, Europe, and Asia.

North American Battery Recycling Facilities

North America is experiencing a rapid build-out of battery recycling infrastructure, driven by the Inflation Reduction Act's incentives for domestic battery material production and the growing volume of manufacturing scrap from new gigafactories. Redwood Materials is constructing a major facility near Charleston, South Carolina, that will complement its existing operations in Carson City, Nevada. The South Carolina plant will process end-of-life batteries and production scrap into cathode active materials and anode copper foil, creating a closed-loop supply chain for battery manufacturers in the southeastern United States. Li-Cycle's hub facility in Rochester, New York, is designed to process black mass from the company's network of spoke preprocessing facilities into battery-grade lithium carbonate, nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate, and manganese sulfate.

Ascend Elements, formerly Battery Resourcers, has opened a commercial-scale facility in Covington, Georgia, and is building a larger plant in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, with support from a $480 million conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. The Kentucky facility will produce cathode active material directly from recycled batteries using the company's Hydro-to-Cathode technology. Cirba Solutions (formed from the merger of Retriev Technologies, Heritage Battery Recycling, and Battery Solutions) operates one of the largest battery recycling networks in North America. American Battery Technology Company is developing recycling operations in Fernley, Nevada, using its proprietary selective extraction process. These projects collectively represent billions of dollars in investment and will create significant domestic recycling capacity by the late 2020s.

European Recycling Facilities

European recycling plant development is driven by the EU Battery Regulation, which mandates minimum recovery rates for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper from end-of-life batteries and will impose minimum recycled content requirements starting in 2031. Umicore is expanding its battery recycling capacity at its Hoboken complex in Belgium and developing next-generation processes that can handle the growing variety of battery chemistries entering the waste stream. Northvolt's Revolt recycling program operates at the company's facilities in Skelleftea, Sweden, recovering battery materials from production scrap and end-of-life batteries for re-use in new Northvolt cells.

Fortum's battery recycling operations in Harjavalta, Finland, continue to expand, leveraging the company's expertise in hydrometallurgy. SungEel HiTech, a South Korean recycler, has established operations in Hungary to serve the European market. Duesenfeld in Germany has developed a patented process for recycling lithium-ion batteries that recovers the electrolyte, a component that most other recyclers lose during shredding and thermal processing. Accurec in Germany operates a vacuum thermal recycling process that can handle various battery types. The EU's regulatory framework is creating a unified market signal that is attracting significant investment in European recycling infrastructure, with multiple facilities expected to reach commercial scale before the recycled content mandates take effect.

Asian Recycling Developments

China already operates the world's largest fleet of battery recycling facilities, processing both domestic end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap from the world's biggest battery production base. GEM Co., Brunp Recycling (CATL subsidiary), Huayou Cobalt, and dozens of smaller operators form a mature recycling ecosystem. New capacity continues to be built to handle the growing wave of first-generation EV batteries reaching end of life. South Korea and Japan are also expanding recycling capacity, with companies like SungEel HiTech, Posco Holdings, JX Metals, and Sumitomo Metal Mining investing in new processing capabilities. These Asian recycling operations benefit from proximity to the world's largest battery manufacturing clusters and established metal trading infrastructure.

Magnet and E-Waste Recycling Projects

Beyond battery recycling, new facilities are being developed to recover critical minerals from permanent magnets and electronic waste. HyProMag in the United Kingdom is scaling its hydrogen-based processing technology for recovering rare earth alloys from end-of-life magnets, with a pilot facility operating in Birmingham. Cyclic Materials in Canada is developing hydrometallurgical processing for rare earth recovery from magnets and electronic waste. Urban Mining Company in Texas produces recycled NdFeB magnets from recovered magnet materials. In the e-waste space, Mint Innovation in New Zealand is commercializing biohydrometallurgy for precious metal recovery, and Enviro Metals in Canada is developing chemical processes for recovering metals from circuit boards and electronic components. For background on the technical challenges of magnet recycling and e-waste recycling, see our dedicated recycling section.

Feedstock, Economics, and Scaling Challenges

The most significant near-term challenge for recycling plant projects is feedstock availability. The large wave of end-of-life EV batteries is not expected to materialize until the late 2020s and 2030s, meaning current facilities rely primarily on manufacturing scrap from gigafactories and consumer electronics waste. Some operators have secured offtake agreements with battery manufacturers for their production scrap, providing a predictable feedstock stream. The economics of recycling are sensitive to commodity prices: when lithium, cobalt, and nickel prices are high, recycling margins are attractive, but price collapses can stress business models. Technology risk remains a factor, as many companies are scaling proprietary hydrometallurgical processes for the first time at commercial scale. Despite these challenges, the combination of regulatory mandates, OEM sustainability requirements, and strategic supply chain considerations is creating durable demand for recycled critical minerals that will sustain investment in recycling infrastructure. For broader context, see recycling and circularity.