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Recycling lithium-ion batteries cuts emissions and strengthens supply chain

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Researchers compared the environmental impacts of lithium-ion battery recycling to mining for new materials.

They found recycling significantly outperforms mining in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and energy use.

The recycling process extracts lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and aluminum from these sources.

Recycling could relieve the long-term supply insecurity -- physically and geopolitically -- of critical battery minerals.

Industrial-scale battery recycling is growing but not quickly enough, says senior author Tarpeh .

The U.S. now recycles about 50% of available lithium-ion batteries, but it has successfully recycled 99% of lead acid batteries for decades .

The opportunity is significant, he says.