Stanford associate professor William Tarpeh and PhD student Samantha Bunke working in the Tarpeh lab (Credit Bill Rivard Precourt Institute for Energy Stanford University)
Recycling lithium-ion batteries isn’t just a greener alternative—it’s a game-changer. A groundbreaking Stanford University lifecycle analysis, published in Nature Communications, reveals that recovering critical metals from used batteries slashes environmental damage compared to mining raw materials.
But the stakes are even higher. On a massive scale, recycling could be the key to breaking the grip of supply chain instability—both physical and geopolitical—securing the future of critical battery minerals in an increasingly electrified world.
Lithium-ion battery recycling plants obtain materials from two primary sources: manufacturing scrap and spent batteries, largely from industrial settings. The recycling process recovers valuable metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and aluminum.
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The study quantified the environmental footprint of this recycling process, and found it emits less than half the greenhouse gases (GHGs) of conventional mining and refinement of these metals and uses about one-fourth of the water and energy of mining new metals. The environmental benefits are even greater for the scrap stream, which comprised about 90% of the recycled supply studied, coming in at: 19% of the GHG emissions of mining and processing, 12% of the water use, and 11% of the energy use. While it was not specifically measured, reduced energy use also correlates with less air pollutants like soot and sulfur.
“This study tells us that we can design the future of battery recycling to optimize the environmental benefits. We can write the script,” said William Tarpeh (BS ’12), assistant professor of chemical engineering in the School of Engineering and the study’s senior author.
Battery recycling’s environmental impacts depend heavily on the processing facility’s location and electricity source.
“A battery recycling plant in regions that rely heavily on electricity generated by burning coal would see a diminished climate advantage,” said Samantha Bunke, a PhD student at Stanford and one of the study’s three lead investigators.
“On the other hand, fresh-water shortages in regions with cleaner electricity are a great concern,” added Bunke.
Most of the study’s data for battery recycling came from Redwood Materials in Nevada — North America’s largest industrial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility — which benefits from the western U.S.’s cleaner energy mix, which includes hydropower, geothermal, and solar.
