Roadmap action timeline
Things to do now in 2025
Technology metal data needs
2020
Technology change
- Promote CE design for recycle
- Cheaper low carbon energy available widely
- Hydrogen economy?
Policy change
- UK needs to act fast on Critical Raw materials
- Secure more tech metal sources – open new mines, promote re-use
- ESG and foot-printing
- Zero waste
Social & economic
- Create more CE focused skilled jobs
- Will the market adjust to CE models fast enough?
- Product (environmental and social) foot-printing
- Behavioural shift to service model (not ownership)
UK’s goals 2050
- Critical Minerals Strategy in UK
- Electric vehicles (no new ICEs)
- Off-shore wind power
- Tech metals circular economy in UK, with international links
- Net zero 2050
Now (2025)
Data
Improve data collection of stocks and flows of LIB materials and continue to keep this information up-to-date (UK Tech metals Observatory). The ability to evaluate complex trade-offs and optimise private and public sector decision-making requires intelligent platforms for observing past performance and the build-up of stocks, as well as forward-looking exploratory models to project future feedstocks in the UK for potential revalorisation opportunities.
Primary Raw Materials
Support the UK domestic supply of LIB materials, especially lithium, for which projects have reached a pilot / demonstration phase. This includes making sure that the value chain actors are in the UK so that there is a complete value chain and also encouraging CE actions along the value chain to increase resource efficiency and circularity.
Maintain and enhance international links, which are essential because of the overseas origins of most of raw materials or LIB processed materials and components. This includes supporting UK companies working and investing overseas in partnerships and knowledge-sharing so that producer countries can create their own (circular) value chains. There will be opportunities for national ‘wins’ where we can lead and profit from best practice.
Manufacturing
Promote good eco-design. This is essential but since most cars made in the UK are exported to external markets, and legislation usually applies to products placed on a market, this needs international collaboration with our largest market partners, both for exports and imports.
Responsible sourcing and supply chain tracking
Take part in international initiatives to encourage responsible sourcing of primary and secondary raw materials, including supply chain assurance and tracking, with legislation for LIB passports (see above). Also responsible manufacturing.
Extending life and increasing materials intensity
Encourage more intensive use of LIBs while they are in EVs by giving incentives for vehicle to grid solutions.
Encourage longer life of LIBs by regulating for diagnostic checks and matchmaking ahead of recycling and creating incentives for re-use and repurposing of LIBs that are in a good state of health.
Recycling
Incentivise the startup of hydrometallurgy recycling in the UK as soon as possible, even if this is combined with shredding (i.e. the lowest value form of recycling), it is important to capture the LIB materials and make secondary materials available to manufacturers.
Regulate so that LIB recycling companies use more clever ways to determine the best destinations for end-of-life batteries so that LIBs are re-used, repurposed or recycled by the most appropriate routes.
Encourage recyclers to be agile and ready for the increasing use of LFP LIB compositions, especially in imported EVs, as well as other future (unknown) changes in battery composition.
Product passports are a priority and need international standards with mandatory information to help with battery re-use and recycling and also responsible sourcing (see below).
Regulation on minimum recycled content is lower priority because UK manufacturers will need to comply with EU regulations in order to place their EVs on the EU market, which is the UK’s largest export destination.
RD&I priorities
Lots of research is needed across the whole CE value chain of LIB materials. We have highlighted a few topics here.
- Cleverer ways to retain higher value, including re-use, product service models, and the ability to disassemble LIBs and make better use of their components rather than shredding them.
- Refurbishment or revalorisation of LIB components (e.g. battery management systems, individual cells) is a promising area that could produce material and energy gains but has not yet been addressed, unlike re-purposing at product (LIB) level and recycling at material level, which have already attracted significant research and experimentation in the industry.
- Longer life and more efficient use of materials, remanufacturing are key CE topics. Agile solutions are needed that can cope with varying battery chemistries and battery constructions in the future.
- Better understanding of the geology and extractive metallurgy of primary LIB material deposits to increase resource efficiency by improved processing and additional by-products and interaction with adjacent activities and local communities to produce more sustainable outcomes from the extraction.
- Better joined-up thinking about future materials from materials science, physics and chemistry and geoscientists.
LIB materials are directly relevant to four areas of the UK’s proposed Industrial Strategy: Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Defence, and Digital and Technologies as well as to the Critical Minerals Strategy.
2030
- Make the most of the UK’s lithium supply, continue to support primary and secondary raw LIB materials production.
- Incentives to prolong battery life by repair and management, so LIBs outlast the EVs (ABM results on gains from remanufacturing from 2030 – should be cheaper and lower carbon emissions).
- Aim to have a LIB labelling / passport system in operation routinely, as part of an international initiative. European proposals are essential because of global trade. Sophisticated decision making for end-of-life steps, to recycle to recover materials or re-use for stationary storage or in another EV.
- Help implementation of business models that facilitate the higher value reverse loops using RD&I results from projects starting now, with incentives or regulation.
2040
- More recycled content of all LIB materials will be available, for example, for Li. Primary supply will also still be available.
- Battery technology likely to have changed though, either to LFP or to more diverse chemistries.
- Need agile solutions to look after and recycle / re-use any redundant materials to good effect, as well as keeping up with battery chemistry.
- Meanwhile, there should be better re-use, repurposing, remanufacturing solutions in the market (which will affect the amounts of raw materials available).
- Good data collection will be needed to continue to monitor and understand these changes.
- New materials to link better to primary resources and potential for re-use and recycling. Better, more innovative product service, resource as a service models.
- Self-driving cars likely to have changed personal mobility giving potential for higher materials intensification and prolongation of use.
- Also, vehicle-to-grid and charging innovations to use batteries more effectively.
2050
- Circular economy knowledge systems should be able to track and trace battery materials, components and unit level data, and produce national materials and product passports. As the use of data driven solutions has increases, tracking materials directly rather than just products should be possible.
- New data-driven business models for resource as a service including product as a service could be in place.
- There may be better integrated transport systems by this time, with fewer personal cars, especially in cities and suburban areas.
- EVs are likely to have new battery chemistries. Need continued agility to keep up / ahead of technology changes. Materials much better integrated.
- There should be a substantive technology metals circular economy for LIB materials, centred on the UK, with mutually advantageous incoming and outgoing international links.
Acknowledgements
The Met4Tech researchers would like to thank all our project partners and other collaborators for their helpful (in-kind) support, for hosting workshops, taking part in workshops and giving knowledge in other ways to the road mapping process.
The Met4Tech project is funded by UK Research and Innovation (EP/V011855/1).
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