A new rule keeps recycled battery material inside the country
On August 27, 2026, a new rule from the Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency inside the Department of Commerce that controls what companies may send abroad, took effect. It requires anyone selling black mass to sell 100% of it to domestic buyers, unless a company applies for and receives an exception, including one that allows the material to go abroad for refining if the refined metal comes back to the United States. The rule rests on Presidential Determination No. 2026 19, issued under the Defense Production Act, a law that lets the government direct the supply of materials it judges necessary for national defense. It runs for at least 1 year, and the public can comment on it through November 4, 2026. Electra Battery Materials, a company building a nickel refinery in the southeastern United States meant partly to use domestic battery recycling supply, welcomed the change.
The United States has built the front half of the battery recycling processing infrastructure faster than the back half.
Trent Mell, chief executive officer of Electra Battery Materials. Source 3.
Why the rule matters, domestic refining is not keeping up
Most black mass generated in the United States currently leaves the country, according to Fastmarkets reporting on industry sources, though the exact share is not public, according to 1 recycling company that studied the question. The Department of Energy counted domestic capacity to reclaim material from black mass at just 35,500 short tons as of 2023, while intermediate processing facilities, the plants that shred batteries into black mass in the first place, were already handling nearly 175,000 short tons that same year. The Department of Energy expects that reclaiming capacity to double over the next 2 to 4 years, adding 76,000 short tons of new capacity, still short of what intermediate facilities already produce.
The 175,000 figure is described in the source as nearly that amount, not an exact count. This chart uses short tons, the unit the Department of Energy reports in, about 9% lighter than the metric tonne used in the next chart.
Show the numbers
| Material reclaimed at intermediate processing, 2023 | 175,000 |
| Domestic capacity to reclaim material, 2023 | 35,500 |
| Additional capacity planned, next 2 to 4 years | 76,000 |
Feedstock is forecast to grow fast
A Fastmarkets research team put United States black mass production at about 40,000 tonnes in 2024, forecast to reach about 270,000 tonnes by 2034. The battery scrap collected for recycling that becomes that black mass was about 87,000 tonnes in 2024 and is forecast to rise by about 488% over the same 10 years, according to the same research team. A short ton weighs about 9% less than the metric tonne used in this section.
All 3 figures are a Fastmarkets research team estimate, not government data, given in tonnes rather than the short tons used in the previous chart.
Show the numbers
| United States black mass produced, 2024 | 40,000 |
| United States battery scrap available, 2024 | 87,000 |
| United States black mass produced, forecast 2034 | 270,000 |
A market forecast built on a supply chain not yet built
Grand View Research puts the United States black mass market at 1.16 billion dollars in 2024, rising to 4.75 billion dollars by 2033, a compound annual growth rate of 17.2%. Divide those 2 figures and the growth comes to about 4.1 times over, a calculation made for this article rather than a number Grand View Research states itself, close enough to call the market forecast to quadruple. The publisher names only a general method, without enough detail to check the forecast independently. 1 recycling company cautions that headline tonnage figures for black mass usually describe material going into a shredder rather than material actually coming out as refined metal.