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Japan finds a way to recover 90% of lithium from old EV batteries
(www.techspot.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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But I presume a new battery also only need 10% lithium?
Right, I don't understand their point. Recycling 90% of a battery is still 90% of a new battery.
It also assumes that we'd still using the same amount of lithium when we get to a point that it's not so cheap they put it in disposable cigarettes.
Exactly.
The whole reason why lithium is such a good material for cathodes in car batteries is because of its very low mass per cation. So for a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery, the the cathode material is LiFePO4, where the Lithium itself is only 4.4% of the overall mass of the cathode.
So it's important to remember that although the lithium constitutes a small amount of the total mass of a battery, that swings both ways so that not much is actually needed to build the next battery out of recycled materials.