Battery recycler achieves industrial-scale graphite recovery

German lithium-ion battery recycler Tozero says it has achieved a breakthrough by producing battery-grade recycled graphite at industrial scale.

The company claims that for the first time, this 100 percent-recycled anode material has successfully been used in battery cell production, proving its viability for commercial applications.

Conventional recycling methods often result in graphite being burned or lost to scrap streams due to the use of strong acids, preventing its efficient recovery. Tozero claims its process achieves more than 80 percent graphite recovery while preserving its morphological integrity on an industrial scale, enabling the material to be refined back to battery-grade quality. The company’s cell test shows comparable performance to a battery cell made with virgin graphite.

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Tozero says its milestone highlights the potential to integrate recycled graphite into global supply chains, reducing carbon emissions, accelerating the electric transition and ensuring the true circularity of battery materials.

“This is a milestone not just for Tozero, but for Europe’s battery industry as a whole,” Tozero co-founder and CEO Sarah Fleischer says. “We’ve already seen our recycled lithium successfully reenter Europe’s supply chain, and now we’re proving the same for graphite. Despite being essential for battery stability, graphite is often overlooked in recycling—largely seen as unrecoverable—yet it is even more critical and geopolitically exposed than lithium. With our FOAK plant on track, we’re scaling to recover even more critical materials, helping companies worldwide decarbonize, secure local supply chains and move towards true circularity—bringing lithium-ion battery waste to zero.”

According to the company, the rapid expansion of electric vehicles and the growing need for large-scale renewable energy storage to combat the climate crisis is driving a surge in demand for critical materials for batteries, including graphite. In the European Union alone, Tozero says graphite demand is expected to rise by 20-25 times current levels by 2040, citing research conducted by Fastmarkets.

Tozero notes that, currently, 98 percent of Europe’s graphite is imported, with China controlling more than 90 percent of global supply, which could leave battery manufacturers vulnerable to trade restrictions and supply chain disruptions. Looking to 2030, Tozero says almost 800,000 metric tons of graphite supply gap worldwide remains to be filled. Additionally, graphite alone accounts for up to 40 percent of a battery’s total carbon footprint, with natural graphite mining remaining environmentally costly. Tozero says this presents a strategic opportunity to shift toward sustainable, locally sourced and circular solutions.

To address these challenges, battery and car manufacturers are increasingly turning to recycled graphite for supply chain resilience and to comply with new regulations like the EU Battery Directive and the European Critical Raw Materials Act and meet their net-zero targets, Tozero says, adding that scaling high-quality, battery-grade recycled graphite is essential to reducing dependency on imports, cutting emissions and securing a stable, circular supply chain for the future of clean energy.

Founded in 2022, Tozero is operating at an industrial scale in its pilot plant, which was inaugurated in 2023. The company recovers lithium and graphite from black mass, cutting emissions of an estimated 70 percent compared to conventional mineral mining. By 2027, the company says it is targeting more than 2,000 tons of recycled graphite production, with plans to quickly scale beyond 10,000 tons by 2030.

The Munich-based company says it actively is working with battery scrap suppliers across more than 10 countries to scale a circular, localized supply chain for lithium and graphite.