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Dr Tannaz Naseri from Tarbiat Modares University in Teheran, Iran, has been a Humboldt Research Fellow in the Institute of Circular Resource Engineering and Management at TU Hamburg since March 2025. She works on innovative approaches to electric vehicle battery recycling.
Electric vehicle battery recycling as a key task in the energy transition
“We do have recycling processes for e-car batteries,” says Tannaz Naseri, “but they’re very energy-intensive and harm the environment.” That is why she wants to employ a different approach to developing a sustainable circular economy for lithium batteries.
Standard recycling methods for recycling electric vehicle batteries extract the reusable metals. “To do so, they either apply extremely high temperatures to melt the batteries and then extract the metals, or they leach them with aggressive chemicals,” Naseri explains. In the process, noxious gases are released, and the carbon footprint is huge.
Second Life through ‘re-lithiation’
Tannaz Naseri, on the other hand, is working on a method of recycling old batteries instead of destroying them. “We preserve the crystal structure of the battery’s cathode material and restore its electrochemical activity,” she explains. By a process known as re-lithiation, the lithium content is replenished, and structural defects are repaired. “This is cleaner and less expensive,” says Naseri. This new method for recycling electric vehicle batteries already works in the lab. The challenge now is to implement it on an industrial scale.
From the road back into circulation – electric vehicle battery recycling 2.0
At present, the number of recycled e-car batteries is not very high – they last ten years or longer before they are recycled. But towards the end of the decade, the return rate will increase significantly when the first generation of e-car batteries reach the end of their lifespan. Until that happens, it is essential to establish a functioning circular economy for the batteries, Tannaz Naseri emphasises. After all, sustainable electric car battery recycling is essential for shaping the mobility of the future in an environmentally conscious manner – and to enhance sustainability.