German startup achieves industrial-scale graphite recovery for lithium-ion batteries
A startup in Munich has successfully completed a battery cell test using 100% recycled graphite for the first time in Europe. The test shows comparable performance to a battery cell made out of virgin graphite.
tozero says it is the first to achieve this at an industrial scale rather than in the laboratory. This would allow recycled graphite to be used as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries and marks a major breakthrough in battery recycling.
tozero has raised €17 million from investors including NordicNinja, Atlantic Labs, Honda and global infrastructure leader JGC Group. It aims to produce over 2,000 tonnes of recycled graphite by 2027, with plans to rapidly scale beyond 10,000 tonnes by 2030.
Despite research into other materials such as silicon, graphite remains the main choice of material for lithium ion batteries. There is limited supply of the material in Europe, although there are some pockets being mined in Sweden, and there are research projects producing graphite from lignin, a by-product of tree cellulose. This is a potential gap in the sovereign supply chain for battery cells for electric vehicles, as graphite demand in the EU is expected to rise by 20-25 times current levels by 2040.
Currently, 98% of Europe’s graphite is imported, with China controlling over 90% of global supply, leaving battery manufacturers vulnerable to trade restrictions and supply chain disruptions.
The same applies to limited sources of lithium in Europe, and the company worked with BMW, MAN, and Webasto to recover lithium from the ‘black mass’ material generated from recycled batteries at its pilot plant which opened in the summer of 2023.
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Conventional recycling methods often result in graphite being burned or lost to waste streams due to the use of strong acids, preventing its efficient recovery. The process developed by tozero achieves more than 80% graphite recovery while preserving the structure, or the morphological integrity, on an industrial scale. This enables the material to be refined back to battery-grade quality.
“This is a milestone not just for tozero, but for Europe’s battery industry as a whole,” said Sarah Fleischer, Co-founder and CEO of tozero. “We’ve already seen our recycled lithium successfully re-enter Europe’s supply chain, and now we’re proving the same for graphite. Despite being essential for battery stability, graphite is often overlooked in recycling—largely seen as unrecoverable—yet it is even more critical and geopolitically exposed than lithium.
“With our plant on track, we’re scaling to recover even more critical materials, helping companies worldwide decarbonize, secure local supply chains, and move towards true circularity—bringing lithium-ion battery waste to zero.”
Tozero also points to the EU Battery Directive coming into force in the next six months that will require battery makers to detail the carbon footprint of their cells, including the graphite. This makes scaling high-quality, battery-grade recycled graphite essential to reducing dependency on imports, cutting emissions, and securing a stable, circular supply chain, says the company.
tozero is working with battery waste suppliers across 10+ countries to source the black mass materials to produce lithium and graphite in Europe to reduce the reliance on imports and the carbon footprint of battery production.
Last year, tozero successfully completed a pilot project demonstrating a stable 80% lithium recovery rate, already meeting the 2031 EU recovery target, in collaboration with The company is actively working with customers in the ceramics and construction industries, expanding the use of recycled battery materials beyond the energy sector.
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