Orbia has secured £1.4m (US$1.87m) in UK Government funding to develop what it says will be the country’s first graphite recycling project, positioning the initiative as a step towards lower-carbon battery production and a more resilient energy system.
While lithium-ion batteries are often defined by lithium, graphite represents a far larger share of their composition. According to Orbia, “graphite makes up about 30% of a lithium-ion battery’s weight,” as it is used in the anode to store lithium ions.
The funding will support Orbia’s Fluor and Energy Materials (FEM) business in establishing a domestic recycling project, aimed at recovering this critical material from end-of-life batteries.
As electrification accelerates across transport and power systems, demand for graphite is rising in parallel with EV adoption, energy storage deployment and digital infrastructure.
This makes graphite a key enabler of the energy transition, yet supply constraints are emerging. By 2035, global demand is expected to exceed supply by around 2.3 million tonnes.
