Recycled battery cathode material still costs more than mined material in the United States

What the study compared

A battery cathode is the layer inside a battery cell where the reaction that stores its charge happens. Making a cathode needs lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, sourced from a mine or recovered from an old battery. A study published in Nature Communications in December 2025 by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory built a cost model from more than 80 mines, refineries and battery plants worldwide, plus 2 United States recycling plants, to compare what each route costs. It measured the dollar cost of the metals needed for 1 gigawatt hour of cathode material, a unit measuring how much energy many batteries together can store, for NMC 95, a battery chemistry mixing nickel, manganese and cobalt that is heavy in nickel and light in cobalt.

The recycled route costs more today

Sourcing the metals for that chemistry from United States mines and refineries costs 12.69 million dollars for every gigawatt hour of cathode material, the study found. Getting the same metals by recycling old batteries costs 18.2 million dollars, 43% more, a MAOWCE calculation from those 2 figures. A gentler method called hydrometallurgical upcycling, which keeps the cathode crystal structure whole instead of dissolving it into separate metal salts, brings the cost to 15.6 million dollars, still 23% above the United States mined floor, another MAOWCE calculation. Sourcing the metals from the cheapest mines anywhere in the world costs 11.64 million dollars, the lowest of the 4 figures modelled.

Cobalt and nickel decide the outcome, not lithium

Lithium, cobalt and nickel together make up more than 70% of the cost of this cathode material, the study found. What matters most is which of those metals a chemistry carries. Recycling pays off fastest when a used battery holds plenty of cobalt or nickel, because those 2 metals carry most of the value a recycler is paid for once it separates a used battery into reusable metal. The study found this nickel heavy, cobalt lean chemistry was the hardest of the 5 it modelled to make competitive through recycling, because it carries so little cobalt.

A separate paper puts the sharpest point on that pattern with lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, a chemistry made mostly of lithium and iron that holds almost none of the cobalt or nickel a recycler needs. Zhang contrasts this with nickel heavy batteries, which the same passage calls urban mining, because their metal content still carries enough value to be worth recovering.

Recycling LFP batteries is waste management, a cost center, not a revenue source.

Qi Zhang, a researcher at BCMaterials and Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science. Source 3.

The gap is expected to close, not stay fixed

The study states in its own conclusion that more batteries reaching the end of their life, and falling prices for the shredded battery material recyclers buy, will make recycled material cost competitive with mined material over time. A separate review of nickel rich cathode recycling gives a profit margin for each of 3 recycling processes, in dollars a kilogram of feedstock. Hydrometallurgy dissolves a battery into a metal rich liquid. Pyrometallurgy, an older method, melts a battery at high heat. Direct recycling keeps the cathode structure whole, and earns the widest and highest margin of the 3, because it captures the most value when it works.