How much money can you make from lithium battery packs in a year

The market around the recycling of lithium-ion batteries is huge and growing, mostly thanks to electric vehicles. Surely, a lot of other lithium-ion batteries get recycled, including from phones and power tools, but the majority comes from EVs. In 2019, it was estimated that the recycling market was worth $1.5 billion.

In contrast, only 28 tons of spent lithium-ion batteries (SLIBs) are needed for leaching . Recycling can recover anywhere from 0 % to 80 % of lithium from end-of-life batteries. By 2030, the secondary recycling supply is projected to contribute slightly over 6 % of the total lithium production .

The projected amount of available lithium-ion batteries to be recycled in 2020 was 460,000 metric tons — a large amount compared with previous years. By 2025, the market for recycling is expected to grow to $12.2 billion. After that, it should remain at an estimated 8% growth rate.

Average costs are an additional US$1.64 kg −1 on top of the hydrometallurgical recycling costs for lithium recovery from LFP, with the process yielding a modest profit of US$0.69 kg −1, offering an additional economic opportunity in closed-loop systems 89, 90, 91 (Table 1).

As the global deployment of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) accelerates, efficient and cost-effective recycling strategies are becoming critical to ensure material circularity and supply security. However, although the technical principles of LIB recycling are broadly understood, the economic modelling of recycling processes remains fragmented.

Profit margins can vary from US$0.4–3.3 kg −1 (hydrometallurgy) and US$0.5–4.0 kg −1 (pyrometallurgy) to US$2.0–14.4 kg −1 (direct recycling), depending on the process conditions, the cost categories considered and the number and type of recovered products. Models reflect the battery chemistry, scale and regional context.