Explore Electrification Academy — your go-to hub for expert knowledge, guides, and resources on battery technology & electrification.
This year, I attended the International Battery Recycling Conference (ICBR 2025) in Valencia — one of the most established global conferences focused on lithium-ion battery recycling, recycling technologies, and regulatory frameworks for batteries and critical materials.
ICBR had been recommended to me repeatedly by people I respect deeply in the battery recycling and battery manufacturing space. Several CEOs independently described it as the conference to attend if you are serious about battery recycling processes, new recycling technologies, regulation, and industrial-scale implementation.
As most of you know, I founded Electrification Academy this year and deliberately chose battery recycling as the first core process we focus on. Lithium-ion battery recycling is one of the most complex — and at the same time most critical — parts of the battery value chain. Yet reliable, structured information on recycling processes, sub-processes, and the technologies and equipment involved is still fragmented and often difficult to access.
If we want to build a functioning circular battery economy, we need to connect technical processes, regulatory requirements, and real industrial experience more clearly. With that context, the timing of attending ICBR 2025 could not have been better.
What immediately stood out at ICBR was the atmosphere. With nearly 30 years of history, the conference has found a balance that is becoming increasingly rare in the battery and recycling space: high technical depth without losing focus, and enough scale to bring together the right stakeholders — while still being small enough to allow for meaningful conversations.
One of the strongest threads running through the conference was regulation — particularly the classification of batteries and black mass as hazardous waste.
This question has consequences far beyond Europe. It directly affects global material flows and raises uncomfortable but necessary questions:
When does valuable material become “waste”?
How do import and export rules evolve when recycling materials are both hazardous and economically critical?
What does this mean for building competitive recycling capacity in Europe?
Unsurprisingly, the EU Battery Regulation, the Basel Convention, and recycling targets came up repeatedly. What I appreciated was that these discussions weren’t abstract. Speakers openly addressed how regulation can both enable and constrain business models — sometimes supporting investment, sometimes adding friction.
A particularly nuanced topic was PFAS in battery recycling: where these substances appear in the process chain, how they are detected, and what mitigation strategies might look like. It’s not a headline-grabbing issue, but it’s exactly the kind of detail that becomes decisive at industrial scale. Seeing the community engage with this level of complexity was encouraging.
Several contributions made it clear that technical feasibility alone is no longer enough.
One presentation that really resonated with me was the CIRCE project, which looked at pre-treatment and hydrometallurgical recycling from a techno-economic perspective — comparing CAPEX and OPEX across regions, exploring innovation pathways, and mapping realistic business models.
This global framing is critical. A process that works on paper or in a pilot plant may not survive regional cost structures, energy prices, or regulatory constraints. The industry needs more of these system-level analyses — not fewer.
It was equally valuable to hear from established players like BASF and Umicore, who shared candid perspectives on how legislative changes in Europe support some aspects of recycling while complicating others. That realism matters. The industry doesn’t benefit from overselling — it benefits from understanding where the real bottlenecks are.
Direct recycling was another major focus, and the discussions reflected both excitement and realism.
Several projects demonstrated impressive progress — from recovering cathode materials to rebuilding cells using recycled precursors. One example traced a Hyundai Kona module all the way through to a coin half-cell using recycled pCAM. Another showed that cells with 20% recycled material could perform comparably to fresh material, while 100% recycled content still came with performance trade-offs.
What became very clear is this:
Direct recycling is not a single process. It is a tightly coupled sequence of steps where yield, material quality, contamination control, and process order all interact.
At this stage, most direct recycling approaches remain at R&D or pilot scale. Scaling them will require not just better chemistry, but robust process control, consistent material specifications, and integration into real manufacturing supply chains.
Lifecycle analyses were discussed frequently — and my main takeaway is that the field is still very much a work in progress.
Different assumptions, system boundaries, and categories make comparisons difficult. LCAs are indispensable, but they still need more harmonization before they can function as a common decision-making language across the industry.
Efficiency was another recurring theme, especially in discussions comparing hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, and hybrid approaches. With Europe’s higher CAPEX, reducing OPEX becomes critical. Some speakers even raised the question of whether subsidies may be necessary in certain contexts to maintain competitiveness.
I appreciated companies like cylib GmbH openly comparing standard and innovative approaches to lithium extraction and process optimization. That level of transparency is essential if we want to move beyond theoretical debates.
One of the most refreshing contributions came from SORTBAT, who introduced the concept of pre-cycling.
Instead of focusing solely on end-stage recycling, they highlighted three areas where decentralized, shared approaches make the most sense:
Collection, logistics, and sorting
Discharge and dismantling
Testing and certification for second life
This framing acknowledges an important reality: not everything scales best when centralized. In many cases, local operations reduce transport risks, costs, and regulatory complexity — especially when safety and compliance are front and center.
One of the closing questions posed to the audience was simple: What would you like to hear more about?
The most common answer was lessons learned, case studies, and best practices.
That response stayed with me. Because as battery recycling matures, the value shifts. Technical innovation remains essential — but so does shared experience. Knowing what works, what fails, and what gets underestimated is increasingly important.
This is exactly why building a holistic, experience-based view of processes, technologies, and strategies matters — and why platforms like Electrification Academy exist in the first place.
ICBR 2025 left me genuinely energized.
Not because everything is solved — far from it — but because the discussions were honest, detailed, and grounded in reality. This conference doesn’t chase trends. It creates space for the conversations that actually move the industry forward.
Thank you to ICM AG for organizing such a high-quality event. I’m very glad I finally made it — and I’m already looking forward to next year.
— Veronika
May 2025 ✨ Looks like I’m officially an Aurelia Star 🤩 — and I couldn’t be more grateful. This recognition comes through the Aurelia Academy
