A review on the industrial chain of recycling critical metals from electric vehicle batteries: Current status, challenges, and policy recommendations

Electric vehicle batteries (EVBs) are expected to rise explosively due to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Recycling critical metals (CMs), such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, contained in end-of-life EVBs will be crucial to response to resource crises. Under this context, a combination of bibliometric and critical analysis is employed to provide an overview of recycling CMs from EVBs. Despite the relevant studies have been experiencing an upsurge, existing reviews only focus on specific technologies or a certain link in the industrial chain. The entire recycling system has not yet been systematically reviewed. Therefore, this study integrates the industrial chain of CM recycling from EVBs, as well as scrutinizes the recycling entities and technologies. On this basis, the challenges for recycling CMs from EVBs are summarized from the perspective of the industrial chain. The study found that (1) Most electric vehicle users are disconnected from the industrial chain, resulting in a low collection rate of EVBs, further leading to idle capacity in CM recovery plants. (2) Inadequate government intervention for electric vehicle users creates a critical conundrum for EVB collection, apart from the challenges including immature collection patterns. Safety risks and high costs of EVB transportation are also potential challenges. (3) In addition to typical challenges like immature technology and insufficient funding support, the limited application of digital technologies hinders the enhancement of EVB dismantling efficiency along with the industrialized implementation of direct and biological recovery technology. Finally, this study proposes corresponding policy recommendations for addressing the existing challenges.