The EV Musings Podcast Feb 8, 2026

283 The Battery Recycling Episode

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Term

supply chain

The supply chain is the process of getting materials and parts needed to make cars from one place to another. It includes everything from getting raw materials to building and selling the cars.

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is a type of car racing where specially designed cars race on tracks. It's very popular and features some of the fastest cars in the world.

Term

automotive manufacturing

Automotive manufacturing is the process of making cars and other vehicles. It involves designing, building, and testing vehicles to make sure they are safe and work well.

Term

Unleaded fuel is a cleaner type of gasoline that doesn't have lead in it. Lead was used in older fuels but was banned because it can be harmful to people and the environment. Most cars today run on unleaded fuel.

Term

lithium-ion battery

A lithium-ion battery is a battery that can be recharged and is often found in things like electric cars and smartphones. If these batteries get damaged, they can catch fire or even explode.

Term

solid state batteries

Solid state batteries are a newer type of battery that use solid materials instead of liquids. They can store more energy and are generally safer than regular batteries.

Term

battery stacks

Battery stacks are groups of battery cells piled together to make a stronger battery. This helps electric cars get more power and drive longer distances.

Term

NMC

NMC is a type of battery used in electric cars that combines nickel, manganese, and cobalt. It's popular because it provides a good mix of power and safety.

Term

LFP

LFP is a type of battery used in electric cars that uses lithium iron phosphate. It's known for being safe and lasting a long time.

Term

lithium batteries

Lithium batteries are a type of battery that can be recharged and are commonly found in electric cars. They are popular because they store a lot of energy and last a long time.

Term

gray market

The gray market is where products are sold through unofficial channels, which can be risky. For cars and parts, this might mean buying something that isn't guaranteed to be safe or reliable.

Term

thermal runaway

Thermal runaway happens when a battery gets too hot and can't cool down. This can cause it to catch fire or even explode, which is very dangerous.

Term

nickel manganese cobalt battery

Nickel manganese cobalt batteries are a type of battery that helps electric cars go further and perform better. They use a mix of metals to achieve this balance.

Term

F1

F1 stands for Formula 1, which is a very fast and exciting type of car racing. It has special cars that are built for speed and performance, racing on tracks all over the world.

LIVE

Hi, I'm Gary, and this is EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles, and things

that are interesting to electric vehicle owners.

And on the show today, we'll be looking at battery recycling.

The EV Musings podcast is sponsored by Zatmap, the go-to app for EV drivers, helping you

find and pay for public charging with confidence.

Our main topic of discussion today is battery recycling, and this is the second in a short

series on batteries I'm running this season.

These episodes should be listened to in partnership with episode 264 from last season, which is

the battery repair episode.

Now I put out a call last season to see if anyone would be interested in an episode

on battery recycling, including a discussion on black mass, which is like the concentrated

mix of critical battery metals, which is reintroduced in the EV battery supply chain, and supports

compliance with EU regulations, mandating recycled content to new batteries from 2030.

Now it's not necessarily a topic that a lot of my audience would find interesting, so

I thought I'd ask and see.

Well, the response was quite overwhelming.

An email flooded in saying they thought this would be a good idea.

Actually, there were several emails all thinking this was what they wanted, but more than I imagined.

So here we are.

So let's chat to someone who works in the sector.

I'm Robin Brundle.

I'm Executive Chairman of Technology Minerals PLC, Executive Chairman of Recyclist Group

Limited, and also on the Board of Trustees of the Faraday Institution.

So essentially for the last six years, I've been focused on the lithium ion battery vertical

and the full circularity of exploration of raw minerals all the way through recycling

and reuse back into lithium ion batteries.

Let's move on and talk a little bit about Recyclist.

What does it do as a company?

So we set off on our journey about seven years ago now, my business partner,

Alex Stambry and I, and we could see that there was going to be a big gap in the lithium

ion battery space, both for the raw minerals, given the hold that China had on global and

still has on global supply of raw materials, and secondly, then on the recycling to recapture

those minerals so that we can keep them in the supply chain and thus from our point

of view, helping to the UK resilience for these raw minerals.

And so Recyclist has got some novel technology at industrial scale that's been processing

since July 2023, described by academia as world-leading.

And at the start of the journey, we knew that we had to be chemistry agnostic so that we're

able to process anything from a button cell in a vape through electric toothbrush, mobile

phone, laptops, e-bikes, cars, trains, forklift trucks, and of course energy storage systems.

And we set about doing this and quickly realized that we had got to create and design our

own plant.

So using the West Midlands capabilities, traditional recycling capabilities along with the very

latest knowledge and understanding of chemistry, we designed and built our own 22,000

ton per year plant, which is operational in Wolverhampton and still operating at scale

today and growing, which is great.

So we are a solution provider to every sector that's using lithium ion batteries.

And more importantly, the work that we've done over the last five or six years that

we have now created that circle.

So using partners abroad at the moment, and we'll perhaps touch on this in a moment,

having to send up some of our raw material abroad, we can now do the final separation to

get the battery material back into purity that will go into making a new battery.

So we've achieved that.

And where we go from here is to take costs out of that process and to take carbon

footprint by not having to ship it abroad.

So we're working hard to give this full circularity capability to the UK.

And that has a huge and a much wider impact because the automotive space is tasked with

using recycled material in the manufacturer of their batteries effectively for the

automotive space.

And I use automotive because clearly they're the biggest by volume user of

lithium ion batteries.

But if they can't get their raw materials here in the UK, they will, of course,

go to where they can, which means that they will go into Europe or into Asia to

do their production and manufacturing.

And the economic impact of the supply chain, of the technology, of academia links with

Formula One with automotive will potentially be broken if we lose this capability.

And that's the flow chain.

But of course, the economics of that, of those people not working, for example,

in the taxation that comes from the automotive space.

So we play a really critical role in producing recycled material to help

attract and retain automotive manufacturing in the UK.

And of course, our big push over the next two to three years is to get

cost out of those programs to make sure that we can at least compete with China

on the supply of raw materials because it's no good us getting this process

going and then presenting the UK Gigafactories with material that's three

times the price of that that they can buy from China.

So we've come an awfully long way on the journey in six years that we've been

working and within the next two years, you'll see those final parts of the

circular economy being cost out and effective here in the UK.

Well, you pretty much answered all the questions that I was going to ask.

So thank you for that.

No, I'm under joking.

We'll come back and talk about some of those things in detail.

But I just want to pose.

Sure.

It's almost a philosophical question.

There is a perception in certain parts of the media and amongst a lot of

the electrical vehicle naysayers that EV batteries are a kind of a disposable

thing. I mean, the number of times I've heard people talk about this

mythical Schrodinger's battery, it's both too expensive to replace, but

it's cheap enough to throw into landfill after three years.

Do you have any idea where that myth came from?

In commerce, you will always have those that will have

the advantage by not supporting a latest technology.

And so, you know, and we've seen it in all of our lifetimes, you know,

when we, those of us that are old enough to remember when we even

transitioned in the 80s from leaded to unleaded fuel, you know,

there were the naysayers there, but they were probably those whose

engines wouldn't run on unleaded fuel, for example.

So you will always find that.

And I think to pick up on a couple of nuances in your question,

the first is that we must all avoid at all costs putting any of this

material back into landfill.

Firstly, there's harm to humans and harm to environment is the first

priority there to stop that from happening.

And then, of course, there is the recycled element of this,

as I've just said, is the carbon footprint of a recycled

battery that can be retained here in the UK to make new.

We believe is around 60% less carbon footprint than extracting

virgin material from the DRC, shipping it to China, processing

it, shipping it back around the world to assemble batteries for

propulsion effectively.

We don't support that theory.

And because we are evidencing that we've got this circularity,

you know, those that are in the camp that you mentioned should

really have a look at the advances that have been made.

And one great example is that, you know, if you look at those

early EV vehicles, the way in which we recycle their batteries

now, academia are reporting to government that it's better to

recycle than to second life them.

Because the way in which we can recycle them and recover,

and the way in which the new batteries now are being

made, you can almost get five new from one old.

And so why would you landfill that material when also it's

volatile over a period of time?

So, you know, for those that are having those sorts of comments,

there's either a political or an industrial comment to be made.

Just have a look at the facts around why it's best not to go

into landfill.

And, you know, we work closely with government agencies

and input regularly into government white papers and

panels to actually help with consumer responsibility.

Because if you look at the consumer responsibility over the

last three years or so, it's plateaued.

And so those that will make the effort to take their batteries

to the correct recycling point or collection point has

actually plateaued now.

So we know that government, for example, about 18 months

ago did a limited program to put to pay for an additional bin

as a pilot in certain postcodes and make it easy for consumers

by giving them, if you like, a fourth bin to put

their small electrical waste into.

And it will come as no surprise that the consumer

responsibility was hockey stick curve improvement.

So we know that if we can make it easier for people

that we can actually recover this, we as a company

call this urban mining.

And we think that there's a big part to play

by the consumer and that our job as commerce is to make it

cost effective to be able to do these collections

and to safely transport this material through our communities

to the places like our facilities at Wolverhampton,

where we can then end of life and recycle safely

do all of those processes.

So we've worked hard along with many, many others,

of course, looking at how we do the packaging,

how we do the logistics.

And even in our case, we're looking

at shrinking our industrial scale plan

to make it into a mobile 40 foot container.

So where we've got problematic material

or fire damaged material, we can actually,

the theory being is that once it's finished,

we can take this module to where the problem is

so that we don't then have to carry this material

on the highways and through the communities effectively.

There's so much good work going on and it's real.

It's real time.

This isn't an enthusiastic future tense conversation.

These things are all happening

and have been happening successfully for quite some time.

Let me pick up on that because recycling batteries,

it has had a bit of a reputation of,

yeah, it's coming in a few years,

it's going to be really, really good.

And that's kind of been there for quite a while.

But given what you've just said

in answer to the last question,

what is the actual state of battery recycling in the UK?

Do we know what percentage of quote unquote

dead batteries are actually being recycling?

How many different organizations are there

in this particular sphere?

Do we know?

The short answer is no, we don't.

And there's a lot of good work going on

to try and identify where the material and its quantum is.

One of the slight issues that's clouding

the statistics on this is that a number of organizations

and companies that use lithium-ion batteries

have actually taken old material off

and have put it into store.

And so we know that there are warehouses full

and even as a company,

we occasionally get surprised by how much material we find

that's been stored over a period of up to 10 years

in some cases.

So those stats are still being flushed out.

The actual robustness of the industry,

we are pretty unique in what we do

because and described as world leading

because we actually shred our batteries

under liquid nitrogen.

And the relevance of this is there are competitors in America

who have had two to three billion dollars

of government money now.

They're shredding underwater under salt water.

So if you've got a lithium-ion battery,

if you damage it, it will go bang flash

and the energy will be released

in the form of an explosion and fire.

And we've all seen these pictures

on one form or another on the news or social media.

However, if you shred under water

as they're doing in America and others around the world,

you actually wash away the liquid in the battery

called the electrolyte

and you also wash away the lithium.

So the recovery rates are well below 90%

and before you even start the process,

there's then high energy usage needed

to dry the material.

So that's our competitors.

But what we're actually doing here in the UK

is we shred under liquid nitrogen

and we've got a novel shredding process

that guarantees the destruction

and controls any form of bang or flash inside the machine

by replacing any oxygen immediately with liquid nitrogen.

And that enables us then to immediately take the liquid

out of the electrolyte out of the battery

which makes the process a lot safer

but also a lot drier.

So we need an awful lot less energy

our whole site runs on less than 250 KVA

of electricity, for example.

And it makes it so much greener

and our recovery rates are in the high 99%

where you'll never capture everything.

There's always gonna be a tiny, tiny, tiny amount

that's able but as best you can

everything we've got going in the front end

we collect out of the back end

and zero to land pool.

So that's given us a whole ESG narrative

with everybody from the automotive space,

the Ministry of Defense to Accardo,

Halfords, high street names that you would recognize.

And what we have with that is as the industry is moving

because you'll know the space is so fast moving

and the race for chemistry is not yet settled.

So one of the beauties we have is agility

because if suddenly, as we have with automotive

we've done all the initial trials

on solid state batteries, for example,

successfully done those.

And also the fact that the battery stacks

are getting wider, they're going the full width of cars now.

So when we first started looking at this,

we only needed an aperture on the machine,

a mouth on the machine, of a meter wide

to accommodate batteries and so on.

Now to be able to put a full stack in

we're now developing and about to start

manufacturing a new mouth.

Well, we can have that done in three months,

whereas if you have to buy it through a third party

from around the world and it's bespoke,

we all know the pain and the cost that that creates.

So we've got business agility

with what we're doing as well.

Yeah, I think that's a very long answer

to a short question, sorry.

Let's just pick up on a couple of the things

that you've mentioned already.

In terms of the actual batteries that have been recycled,

I think early on you said that you'll pick anything

from the ones that you'll find in vapes

and any sort of electronic item

right up to electric vehicle batteries.

Do you have a breakdown of what percentage

of the batteries you're recycling

are actually coming from electric vehicles

versus other sources for those batteries?

Yes, we do and it's a very good question

and we do a monthly and yearly comparison.

And this time last year, for example,

our top three clients were from the W category,

W-E-E-E, waste electrical category effectively.

So this would be your laptop, your mobiles,

your toothbrushes, your vapes,

the children's toy cars, e-bikes and so on.

But in the last 12 months,

it's been overtaken by automotive

and we also are unique in that we can take damage

to effective and burnt batteries

and process them and get full recovery from them

of what's left, full recovery of whatever we've been handled.

And so what we are now seeing is that automotive

is our, by the end of this year,

we'll become our biggest operator,

currently running in second place

behind the WEE collection systems.

And, but you know, if you think about

how small a vape battery is, for example,

and then some of the batteries

that we're getting from automotive,

you know, a three quarters of a ton.

So you have to have an awful lot of vapes

to match a getting full batteries in from automotive.

You know, and we've also done a lot of work

on next-gen as well.

And some of the next-gen that we've processed,

we've trialed with the manufacturers,

yeah, they're coming at us with a thousand volts in them.

So, you know, these are serious, serious batteries

that are going to propel four by fours

in the same way as large petrol or diesel turbo

and fossil-fueled vehicles will be propelled.

You know, they're very, very next-gen,

gen four, gen five batteries.

They're incredibly powerful

and the technology to rapidly recharge them

now makes them comparable, in my opinion, with fossil fuels.

But somebody somewhere has got to handle them

if they go wrong.

And that is our role,

is to make sure that those materials

are properly dealt with, end of life,

don't end up in a grey market

where much harm can be done.

And we certify for our clients,

we certify every battery is certified

that it's been end of life as well.

In terms of the, actually, on this briefly,

in terms of the chemistry of the batteries,

if we look at electric vehicles,

the two main ones are the NMC and the LFP,

are you able to deal with both of those

or are you focused just on one in preference to the other?

Yes, we do both.

We've recently submitted papers

for consideration to government.

We have opted to batch process those two chemistry.

So LFP is dealt with differently to the NMC family.

And I say NMC family because it may be a surprise,

but vape batteries are NMC as well.

So despite being a relatively cheap product,

they've actually got the highest grade batteries in.

So we can process those along with automotive

and not get any corrupted back-end material.

LFP is very much a commercial concern.

I mean, it's easy to process.

And we do several thousands of tons of material.

But the slight issue we have is that

when it comes to what is the off-take for those,

there is virtually no value at all of the back-end of LFP.

So if we don't charge a gate fee for the LFP,

we will then have to stop processing.

So we've written to government too,

and it's been well received to say,

look, we need to have a producer responsibility scheme

that brings in a levy for LFP chemistry batteries.

This will help to protect recycling because without it,

you don't have to be a business person to realize

that if you don't get a gate fee at the front end,

no revenue at the front end,

and there's no real benefit and revenue at the back end,

you've still got operating costs in the middle,

you will not be viable and without government support,

the whole system of recycling LFP will be finished.

Then you're into exporting it back to China

where they will government subsidize and recycle

and retain international economic and commercial benefit

from it or your landfill,

which is just completely unacceptable.

So, yes, there are challenges,

thankfully being an island as we are here in the UK

and not wishing to reopen debates on Brexit,

but one of the upsides,

and there are many debates on either side, I accept that,

but one of the upsides is that we're able to look

at European policy in the areas that we have here

and either accept them and mirror them

or we can mirror them and add or mirror them

and subtract from them around how we deal with these materials

and how we keep them on shore here

and dissuade people from actually exporting these minerals,

but we're not mining and that's a critical pathway here,

the UK has virtually no mining of lithium at all

in any quantity and certainly not enough to support

up to six gigafactories,

which would be the ideal in the next 10 years.

And so we have to either buy the material in

or as academia have reported,

depending on the number of gigafactories,

recycling in the way in which we're doing it would recycle us.

We may be able to supply up to around 40%

of the requirements of the gigafactories going forward

by using recycled material and urban mining.

So that's really where we're at.

So let's talk a little bit about your,

I'm gonna use the phrase supply chain.

Now we've already talked about the WEEE batteries

that you're getting and we've talked about the electric vehicles.

Now I wanna focus a little bit

on the electric vehicle batteries that are coming in.

Where are they coming from?

Are these mostly EVs that have been in accidents

or something like that?

What's the actual source?

Where are they coming from?

This is three key sources really.

One is accident vehicles, as you rightly say.

The second are warranty issues

for automotive companies from around the world.

And the third is material that goes to test centers

and what would be classed as production scrap, effectively.

And is there contention between companies

such as yourselves and companies that want to,

for example, repair a damaged battery?

Because obviously there are batteries

which because of the way the technology works,

there are a lot of people who will see a damaged battery

and go, right, that needs to be replaced.

They'll ship that out and you'll get that.

Versus there are companies that will come in and say,

well, actually we've got 20 or 30 packs in here.

There's only one of them that's actually wrong.

We can take that out, replace it

and keep that battery there.

So how are you dealing with that contention?

We're strong of opinion on this

and listening to others report to government

like insurance, for example, like academia.

And we believe that the recycling of these batteries

is the preferred route and the recovery of the minerals

and reuse of the minerals.

So we're very firm in that.

We know that right now there is a strong market

for this second use.

The issue we have and we're seeing,

yeah, we carry a hundred tons of material as feedstock

ready to feed to the plant effectively.

So we're seeing and dealing with these lithium batteries

on mass every day from automotive.

We also for automotive do discharge and dismantle.

So we get to see the insides

of most automotive batteries as well.

Our opinion is that the gray market is a dangerous place

and let's separate this into two tracks here.

It's you've got the gray market

where you've got untrained folks

that are buying from an internet system, let's say,

and then doing a repair to a vehicle

that they're not 100% familiar with.

There's, we believe there's already been

experiences of lots of life to those

when the cars have gone home and been charging.

If you take the other track

where you've got an automotive company

that has got producer responsibilities

that are saying, actually,

we've got all of the correct test equipment

and actually we've designed the battery

in the first instance to be repairable

because right now they're not

and we the car company or battery manufacturer,

gigafactory will actually continue to warrant

as if it's to new performance effectively.

Once we've done the repair,

then I think that's a very different argument

and because if it's to manufacturers

original specification,

then I don't think anybody can have a problem with that

but it's not for the faint hearted to be a producer

and have producer responsibilities

because there are levies, there are liabilities

that all have to be considered.

So the slight worry is that we've got

non-gigafactory or car company, if you like,

second life going into things like energy storage

of which some of them can be going into domestic use,

for example, and they're the things

that make us extremely nervous.

And if we start to put these energy storage systems

under tower blocks, for example,

then we all know where the potential hazard there could lead.

So until you've experienced one of these batteries

going pop and the energy and the force

in which it happens, you won't fully really understand

the risk of getting it wrong with second life.

So there is a big market at the moment.

It's profitable here in the UK,

but it's only profitable because the batteries

are being shipped abroad.

And so we're shipping, in our opinion,

batteries that could be vulnerable

on the high seas in the first instance

and then secondly to countries where, let's say,

the standards may not be as rigorous

as they are here in the UK.

So we're very firm of opinion on that,

but driven by experience of what we see happen

to the batteries that we deal with.

Right, so let me see if I can clarify things

because the general consensus, and I think I agree with it,

is that the incidence of an electric vehicle battery

igniting and causing thermal runaway is very,

I mean, it's not zero, but it's very, very small

and it's much smaller than the incidence

of internal combustion engines are going on fire.

But what you're saying is that once those batteries

have reached a point where they've been taken out

of that vehicle and then passed on to a third party

who may or may not know in detail the minutiae

about how to process that battery

and make it into a second life,

there is the possibility that the risk

of thermal runaway will increase

with the second life battery.

Is that what I'm hearing you say, or have I misunderstood you?

No, you've understood, it's slightly wider than that as well,

but you've understood correctly.

And my point is this, if the manufacturer of the cell

has tested it and deemed it to be

within specification of that of a new cell,

then there should be no additional risk.

Where you've got people on the outside

who have not tested to original specification.

The risk, in my opinion, is too great and shouldn't be allowed.

And the reason is this, that we see in our everyday world

that batteries that can be, you can put handheld devices

on them to test the energy storage and so on and so forth.

But in reality, what you've got is a whole bunch

of chemistry that's traveling from your negative

to your positive or your positive to your negative,

depending on whether you're charging or discharged, okay?

And there are certain channels for these materials, let's say.

And the batteries themselves have got all

of the raw ingredients to explode.

So they also contain oxygen, okay?

And this thermal runaway, it only needs to have one piece

of, let me call it a membrane, separation membrane

that enables any of the chemistries

to mix that should not mix.

And there is the perfect fire triangle

with calorific liquid called electrolyte.

So what you've actually got is fire

and high energy for explosion.

So you end up with extreme temperatures

and molten aluminium, whatever it is, copper aluminium

and so on, that's actually flying through the air

along with flames and it spits, and it spits badly.

So propagation is highly likely at that point.

So that's really the whole emphasis that we've got here

is you just don't know.

If you look at a battery, and we've had automotive batteries

come into sight, been properly checked through

and we put them on the conveyor belt

and they then will go to thermal runaway

on the 22 seconds that it takes for them

to go on the conveyor belt into the liquid nitrogen

which is the safest point is in the liquid nitrogen.

And we've actually had over the last 12 months,

we've had three new belts on our infeed

because batteries have actually gone pop at that point

and they looked and tested

to make sure that they were discharged effectively,

looked perfectly fine and adequate to go into the system

and they still exploded on the conveyor belt.

And when you see that and live that

and we spend 24 hours a day

making sure the whole yard is controlled in that way,

it then makes you worry for people putting them

into places where they shouldn't really be

if they haven't been properly validated.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

But we're coming towards the end of our time.

So what I wanna do is just ask a couple of quick questions

of recyclers themselves.

What, I mean, we've talked about what you do,

but I don't think that you've defined specifically,

what is your end product?

Do you create new batteries or do you sell black mass

or do you split out the different elements

and sell them separately?

But what do you sell out

and who is your market?

Who do you sell to?

Okay, so very good question.

So anything that's non-ferrous for example

in the liquid called the electrolyte.

So we've got copper, we've got aluminium,

we've got plastics, we've got high calorific liquids.

All of those elements stay here in the UK.

At the moment, you may have heard

of an international company called Glencore

who are probably the biggest mining and commodities

company in the world.

They take our black mass product

and they then ship it to certain places around the world

to make it back into pure enough materials

to go into batteries.

Now what is black mass?

Black mass essentially, if you look at it,

it looks like a talcum powder

that contains the nickel, the cobalt,

the manganese and the lithium.

So it has those four salts in it

and at the moment the UK does not have

industrial scale capability to separate this.

And this is why we use Glencore

who may then it goes initially to Germany

for a certain process

and then it can either then go off to India

or to South Korea before it then goes back to China.

So that's the circle

but all roads lead to and from China effectively.

So that is what we are as a company

working hard to break.

So we announced back in October, I think it was,

that we're working with Jaguar Land Rover,

Warwick University

and a New Zealand mining company called Mint Innovation.

We've won an 8.1 million pound bid,

government bid to set up and bring

that black mass separation here to the UK.

Now that process uses an alkali process.

So it's one way of getting the separation of the four salts

and the critical pathway of course

is to make sure that you recover all four salts

because for years people have been able to get one or two

but we're now able to get four through this process.

However, with the work that we've been doing

over the last two and a half years

through government and on the

government to government India program,

we've been working with a company there

that's been processing and separating the black mass

for the last 12 months using an acid process.

So we're looking at ways to how we can work

with that company and I had the pleasure of going

whilst we're politically agnostic,

I got invited to go with the Prime Minister

back in November to go as part of the delegation

to sign the trade agreement with India

and where we can start to further trust each other

with IP effectively.

So they've got something there using acid.

So at this point we've got a twin track strategy

with acid and alkaline and we are looking at a third track

which may use a closed water system

without using water and wasting water,

it uses water in a process but recycles it

and the reason that we're running all three

of those tracks is very simple.

We know that the science is there to do the separation

because we've already got that through Glenport.

What we now need is what is the most cost effective way

to do the industrialization piece

to bring this black mass separation to the UK.

So to be clear, we're dealing with minerals

and our whole raison d'etre is to recover them,

separate them, reuse them,

but we will then be a supplier of material,

two gigafactory.

So we have no intention of starting battery manufacturing.

That is a whole new world of expertise

that we don't currently have in our business

and wouldn't want to chase.

You know, it's into the billions of investment

over a long period.

Now I once heard that in future, in time,

we will have enough batteries being recycled

into new batteries that we'll be able to cut down

on the amount of mining that we do for raw minerals.

I don't know what that percentage is,

whether it's 50% lower, 75% lower, 90% lower, I don't know.

Do you think that's accurate?

And if you do, what sort of timeline

do you think we're talking about for that?

Yeah, that's a good question.

It depends, sorry, let me give you a direct answer.

The direct answer is we will never be able to recycle

enough to supply the gigafactories.

Okay, so virgin material will still be required.

So we will be, as a nation,

we will be a buyer of raw material.

However, depending on the number of gigafactories

will depend on the percentage,

will depend on how many we have.

So if we had six gigafactories,

academia are saying that recycling in the way

in which we do it by 2035 could produce

up to 42% of the raw material needed

to feed up to six gigafactories.

Now clearly, if we only end up with four,

then we're gonna get a higher percentage

and if we have eight, we're gonna have a lower percentage.

So, and even if it was 25%,

it's still significant

because of the carbon footprint reduction.

And that's a critical pathway for automotive, as you know,

is that they've got hockey stick targets

to take carbon footprint out of production.

So if you think that a car battery roughly weighs

half of the car, you know,

if we can help reduce the carbon footprint of that battery,

then we've helped the automotive space

get down to the carbon targets

for each vehicle that goes along the production line.

So we are an important part.

There will be a gigafactory strategies document

coming out around the 22nd onward of this month

that I can't talk about,

but you'll see that there's a lot of really good information

in that policy paper of which we've had the pleasure

of having our input into.

And in fact, our company is named.

Good.

Now, this podcast will come out

after that deadline that you just said.

So I will have read the document by then

and I'll see whether I can put anything

into the podcast about it.

Is there anything else that you'd like to say

to the listeners about recyclers

and about the work that you're doing before we close?

No, I think we've covered it all, Gary, to be honest, thank you.

Wonderful.

Robin Brundle, I appreciate your time.

I think it's been a fascinating conversation.

I think a lot of it will have made a sense

to a lot of people.

Absolutely. I think it's been a great conversation

and I appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

My pleasure.

Nice to meet you and thanks for yours.

So a couple of takeaways from this discussion.

Battery recycling is far more widespread

than people originally think it is.

It's bolstered of course by the massive amount of batteries

that are coming from things such as laptops and vapes

and electric toothbrushes.

But as Robin mentioned, it doesn't take too many

of these large EV batteries to outweigh the much smaller batteries

that they're also recycling.

I was interested to hear his comments about LFP

not being financially viable for recycling

without a producer levy,

i.e. people who make the battery

paying for the recycling upfront.

Badass battery electrochemist Dr. Ewan McTurk

told us on a recent episode LFP batteries

are basically lithium fertilizer and rust

so it makes sense that the recycling value

is much lower than something like

nickel manganese cobalt battery.

Finally, if anyone was wondering and I did ask,

Robin Brundle is former F1 driver

and current commentator Martin Brundle's brother.

How about that?

So what do you think?

Was it worth the wait for this discussion?

I found the discussion to be quite fascinating.

Learned quite a lot.

Who knew that second life batteries from EVs

are potentially more dangerous than new ones

under the right slash wrong circumstances?

Well, any thoughts or comments,

drop a comment on the YouTube video

or email me at the address below.

I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show.

It was put together this week

with the help of Robin Brundle from Recyclus Group.

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Now I know you're probably driving

or walking or jogging

or in the shower or washing the car

but if you can remember

and you enjoyed this episode,

proper review in iTunes, please.

Really helps me out.

I did go out and go in

and have a look recently

as some of the most recent reviews.

Thank you very much

for those who took time to do that for me.

If you've reached this part of the podcast

and are still listening, thank you.

Why not let me know you've got to this point

by messaging me at evmusings.beastguide.social

with the words mineral circularity.

Hashtag if you know, you know, nothing else.

And thanks as always to my co-founder Simon.

You know, I often wondered if you're considering

trying to do one of those really long distance journeys

on his electric unicycle

like Edinburgh to Athens or London to Cairo.

But I imagine there's so many logistical issues

such as maybe keep his cheese sandwiches

if he has to carry everything in a backpack

or would he need a complete support team

or even would he actually have to stop to pee

or just slow down?

Or had I misunderstood things?

No, you've understood.

It's certainly wider than that as well,

but you've understood correctly.

Thanks for listening.

Bye.

About this episode

Exploring the critical topic of battery recycling, this episode features Robin Brundle, Executive Chairman of Technology Minerals PLC. The discussion covers the importance of recycling lithium-ion batteries to ensure a sustainable supply chain in the UK, especially in light of upcoming EU regulations. Brundle explains the innovative processes at Recyclist, including their world-leading technology for recycling various battery types. The episode also tackles misconceptions about battery disposability and highlights the environmental benefits of recycling over landfill disposal, emphasizing the need for consumer responsibility and effective logistics.

automotive manufacturing battery stacks F1 Formula One gray market LFP lithium batteries lithium-ion battery nickel-manganese cobalt battery NMC

Original notes

In this conversation, Robin Brundle, executive chairman of Technology Minerals and Recyclus Group, discusses the critical role of battery recycling in the circular economy, particularly in the context of electric vehicles.

He shares insights on the journey of battery recycling, debunks myths surrounding EV batteries, and highlights the current state of battery recycling in the UK.

Robin emphasizes the importance of consumer responsibility, the risks associated with second-life batteries, and the future of battery recycling in relation to the automotive industry and gigafactories.

Guest Details:

Robin Brundle is Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Recyclus Group, leading the rollout of proven, industrial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling technology. Since July 2023, Recyclus has demonstrated safe, effective, and sustainable battery processing and now focuses on scaling operations and advancing next-generation recycling. He is also Executive Chairman of Technology Minerals PLC and played a key role in its 2021 London Stock Exchange listing. A recognised policy voice, Robin sits on UK government battery and critical minerals taskforces and is a Trustee of The Faraday Institution, bringing over 30 years’ senior leadership across automotive, motorsport, and clean energy.

Robin's Website

The EV Musings Podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the go-to app for EV drivers, helping you find and pay for public charging with confidence.

Links in the show notes:

Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk

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Mentioned in this episode:

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The EV Musings Podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the go-to app for EV drivers, helping you find and pay for public charging with confidence. Zapmap is free to download and use, with subscription plans for enhanced features such as using Zapmap in-car on

The EV Musings Podcast

Gary Comerford

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