Market and product

A booming battery market creates an end-of-life challenge

Global demand for lithium-ion batteries has grown sharply in recent years. From around 180 GWh in 2020, total market capacity expanded more than fivefold to 1,100 GWh by 2024, and is projected to exceed 3,500 GWh by 2030. More than one in four cars sold worldwide in 2025 was electric.

Rapid growth inevitably brings a new problem: the number of batteries reaching end of life will increase dramatically. According to the International Council on Clean Transportation, approximately 1.2 million electric vehicle battery packs will reach end of life in 2030, rising to 14 million by 2040 and 50 million by 2050.

Improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries carry significant risks. They can generate toxic hydrogen fluoride gas when they catch fire, and fluorinated organic compounds in the electrolyte can leach into landfill waste water, causing long-term environmental contamination. Recycling, by contrast, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of up to 80% compared with extracting virgin raw materials from mines.

Battery recycling innovation: Sharp acceleration since 2017

This report analyzes patenting trends in the field of battery circularity — encompassing recycling, reuse and repurposing of batteries — drawing on the EPO's global patent database.

The number of international patent families (IPFs) related to battery recycling grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42% between 2017 and 2023, compared with 16% for rechargeable battery technology broadly and just 2% across all technical fields combined.

Before 2017, the field was relatively modest, with fewer than 100 IPFs filed per year. By 2023, that figure had approached 500. Total invention filings — including both domestic and international families — exceeded 2,400 in 2023. European patent applications in the field continued to rise sharply in 2024, suggesting the growth trajectory remains intact.

The 2017 inflection point was not coincidental. That year, global electric vehicle sales surpassed one million units for the first time, and it was also the period when governments in Europe and China began enacting legislation holding manufacturers responsible for electric vehicle batteries at the end of their useful lives.

Asia leads the field; Brunp rises to number one

Geographically, Asian companies — and Chinese ones in particular — now hold a clear advantage. In 2023, applicants from Asia accounted for 63% of all IPFs in the field.

Prior to 2019, Japanese and Korean conglomerates such as Toyota, LG and Sumitomo Metal Mining led the patent filing rankings. Since then, the top position has been taken by Brunp — the recycling subsidiary of CATL, the world's largest battery manufacturer. In the 2020–2023 period, Brunp filed more than twice as many IPFs as Toyota, which ranks second overall across the past two decades.

Brunp was founded in 2005 and acquired by CATL in 2015. The company has already installed recycling capacity equivalent to around 5% of the global total, supported by access to manufacturing scrap from CATL factories — currently the largest single source of recycling feedstock worldwide.

China dominates both recycling and critical metal refining

China currently controls the supply of 19 out of 20 refined critical minerals for the energy sector. In battery materials specifically, around 70% of global refined lithium production in 2024 came from China, while nearly 80% of cobalt refining takes place there, even though most of the ore is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In battery recycling patents, China's share of global IPFs rose from 5% in 2013 to 29% in 2023. When domestic patents are included — which tend to carry lower commercial value — the figure reaches approximately 70% over the most recent five-year period.

Since 2018, a notable trend has emerged: Chinese applicants have been shifting from purely domestic patent filings toward international protection. This reflects their ambition to expand into overseas markets as battery recycling regulations are adopted in a growing number of countries.

Europe holds around 20% of international patents, with strengths in collection and pre-processing

Europe has maintained a stable share of roughly 20% of total IPFs throughout the study period. The most prominent European players include BASF (Germany), Umicore (Belgium), and CEA — France's state-funded research organization. A growing number of startups and universities are also filing patents in the field.

In technical terms, European applicants are particularly strong in remote handling technologies (accounting for 34% of global IPFs in this sub-category), isolation and immobilization (30%), and hydrometallurgical extraction following pyrolytic pre-treatment (26%).

It is worth noting that if 2024 data were included, BASF would more than double its total IPF count — from 31 to over 60 — becoming Europe's leading filer by a considerable margin. The company is currently operating a black mass production plant at its Schwarzheide site in Germany, with a processing capacity of up to 15,000 tonnes of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries per year.

One notable startup is Cylib (Germany), spun out of RWTH Aachen University in 2022, which is building one of Europe's largest battery recycling plants at CHEMPARK Dormagen with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes per year, scheduled to begin operations in 2027. Cylib's key innovation is recovering lithium at an early stage of the recycling process rather than at the end, enabling recycling efficiency above 90%.

Policy landscape: Europe setting the strictest standards

The EU Battery Regulation (Regulation 2023/1542) sets mandatory minimum recycled content requirements for new batteries: 16% cobalt, 6% lithium and 6% nickel from 2031, rising to 26%, 12% and 15% respectively from 2036. Material recovery targets have been set at 90% for cobalt, copper, lead and nickel, and 50% for lithium by the end of 2027.

Another significant policy instrument is the digital battery passport, mandatory from February 2027, which will allow lifecycle information for each battery pack to be accessed via a QR code.

In China, new regulations taking effect in April 2026 require electric vehicle manufacturers to establish battery collection networks proportionate to their sales volumes, alongside a national battery traceability system.

The European Commission's RESourceEU Action Plan (2025) announced that waste lithium-ion batteries and black mass will be classified as hazardous waste from September 2026, effectively prohibiting their export to non-OECD countries including China. The measure is intended to retain recycling feedstock for processing within the EU. The plan also envisages mobilizing around €3 billion in funding to support projects along the critical raw materials value chain.

The challenges ahead

The report identifies several concrete challenges facing the sector.

Feedstock scarcity in this decade. Currently, manufacturing scrap — offcuts and rejected material from battery production rather than end-of-life vehicle batteries — accounts for nearly all recycling feedstock. Batteries from electric vehicles will only begin retiring in large numbers from the mid-2030s onwards. This creates a "valley of death" for recycling companies seeking to scale up during the current decade.

Overcapacity in China. Even if all available recyclable batteries in China were collected and processed, recycling plants there would currently operate at an average utilization rate of only around 20%.

Unresolved technical bottlenecks. Efficient lithium recovery, handling of complex black mass streams, management of fluorinated binders and electrolytes, and adapting processes to evolving battery chemistries — including the shift away from cobalt and the rise of lithium iron phosphate batteries — are challenges that cannot be solved through scale-up alone.

Insufficient downstream offtakers. In many advanced economies, there is a shortage of cathode active material manufacturers capable of using secondary inputs from recycling, which limits the practical impact of expanding recycling capacity.

Looking ahead

Under the IEA's Announced Pledges Scenario — which assumes all government climate commitments are met on schedule — recycling could reduce primary supply requirements by around 40% for copper and cobalt, and around 25% for lithium and nickel by 2050.

The authors nonetheless caution that recycling cannot fully replace mining in the coming decades, particularly while the stock of end-of-life batteries remains limited. Battery circularity should be understood as one component of a broader materials strategy, combined with diversified sourcing, responsible mining practices and improvements in material efficiency.

The regions most likely to attract investment and generate economic value from this sector will be those that manage the policy challenges effectively while sustaining a robust environment for innovation.

Source: EPO and IEA, "Battery Circularity: Innovation Trends for a Future Source of Critical Materials", April 2026. The full report is available at epo.org/insight-battery-circularity.