Li-Ion Battery Recycling Patent Landscape in 2026
- Filings up 205% over three years, though annual volume peaked in 2023.
- AGR Lithium and Green Li-Ion are near-tied, both portfolios built in the last three years.
- Two IPC branches carry the field. The enabling steps around them are thinly filed.
AGR Lithium and Green Li-Ion lead a fragmented but consolidating field
The top five applicants hold 39% of the output of the hundred largest filers. That is moderate concentration, with room for challengers.
AGR Lithium and Green Li-Ion are near-tied at the top. The second tier starts at 27 families and falls to 12 and below, so leadership is contested rather than held.
Multi-year growth remains strong; electrochemistry and hydrometallurgy dominate the technology mix
Two technical domains carry the field. The adjacent process branches around them stay sparse.
Annual filing trend
Filings peaked in 2023. Bars from 2024 on are floors, not totals — publication lag, not a slowdown.
Technology composition
Direct cell recycling (H01M) and hydrometallurgical recovery (C22B) take 79%. The six amber branches serve the same workflows on a fraction of the filings.
Research Li-Ion Battery Recycling in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the 401 patent families yourself, in your own scope. Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
Try EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Reactive phase separation of black mass from lithium-ion battery recycling and methods
Methods for processing black mass material from lithium-ion battery recycling processes include fractionating the black mass into a lithium fraction, a graphite fraction, and a concentrated metal powder fraction. This is accomplished using a multiphase liquid blend of nonpolar hydrophobic solvent and water to dissolve the lithium and produce a multiphase… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flotation method for recovering lithium-ion batter… | 256 |
| 2 | Recycling of coated electrode materials | 48 |
| 3 | Relithiation in oxidizing conditions | 36 |
| 4 | Lithium-ion battery recycling method and recycling… | 35 |
| 5 | 一种从废旧锂离子电池回收过程产生的含锂废液中提取锂的方法 | 34 |
| 6 | Method for recovering valuable material from used … | 29 |
| 7 | Relithiation in oxidizing conditions | 28 |
| 8 | 废旧锂离子电池正、负极活性材料协同处理的方法 | 27 |
Ranked by forward citations, which favour older and broadly cited families. Some titles appear in their original language.
Run the same patent analysis on your own technology
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the competitive structure means for R&D investment decisions
Lifecycle stage, concentration, co-filing networks and geographic coverage each point somewhere different for an entrant.
Still early enough to take a position
Filing peaked in 2023 and recent years are understated by publication lag, so this is expansion, not cooling. Differentiated approaches can still win IP before filing turns incremental.
No incumbent to displace
The top two are separated by a single family, so depth in one sub-route beats broad coverage. Direct cathode relithiation and selective leaching are the two obvious candidates.
Co-filing is intra-group, not cross-institutional
Guangdong Brunp co-files with Hunan Brunp on 10 families and Brunp EV on 6. Outside the group collaboration is sparse, so an academic or national-lab partner is still an open differentiator.
US leads, but the fourth place is the surprise
US first, then PCT and EPO. India sits fourth, unusual for a battery field, tracking India-headquartered filers such as Attero. Prosecute US, PCT and EPO first; watch India.
Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with cited patent and literature evidence.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology Co Ltd | Hunan Brunp Recycling Technology Co Ltd | 10 |
| Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology Co Ltd | Hunan Brunp EV Recycling Co Ltd | 6 |
| Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology Co Ltd | Hunan Brunp Automotive Recycling Co Ltd | 2 |
Co-filing pairs by jointly-filed patent families.
Where the leaders are strong, and which adjacent branches they have left open
Both leaders built their portfolios in the last three years, on different mixes of electrochemical and hydrometallurgical routes.
AGR Lithium Inc
34 of 39 families were filed in the recent window, so the entire position is new. Focus sits in C22B 7, H01M 10 and C22B 26: hydrometallurgy first, aimed at critical mineral recovery.
Green Li-Ion Pte Ltd
37 of 38 families are recent. H01M 10, C22B 3 and C22B 47 point to cathode regeneration and selective hydrometallurgy, distinct from AGR Lithium’s lithium emphasis. The closest competitive pair in the field.
| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| AGR Lithium Inc | 34 | ▲ new entrant |
| Green Li-Ion Pte Ltd | 37 | ▲ new entrant |
| Regents of the University of California | 17 | ▲ +31% |
| Metso Outotec Finland Oy | 6 | ▼ -71% |
| II-VI Delaware Inc | 12 | ▲ new entrant |
| Hulico LLC | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology Co Ltd | 9 | ▲ new entrant |
Branches adjacent to the dominant routes that nobody has taken
The leaders cluster in two IPC branches. These classes serve the same workflows at very low record counts — a hypothesis to test, not a confirmed opening.
B01D · Separation processes (filtration, membrane, solvent extraction)
19 patent records, 2% of the IPC distribution. B01D covers the filtration, membrane and solvent-extraction steps that hydrometallurgical recycling depends on, yet they are rarely patented standalone — even though C22B 3 (leaching and solvent extraction) is a primary focus for several top filers. Membrane or filtration expertise could hold this enabling layer.
Who owns this branch? →C01D · Alkali-metal compounds (lithium carbonate / lithium hydroxide synthesis)
27 patent records, 3% of the distribution. C01D covers alkali-metal compound synthesis — turning recovered lithium into battery-grade carbonate or hydroxide — on the boundary between recycling and precursor manufacturing, with few dedicated filers here. Open to teams with lithium salt purification chemistry.
Who owns this branch? →Frequently asked questions
The corpus contains 401 patent families. The United States is the lead filing jurisdiction, followed by WIPO (PCT) and Europe (EPO).
AGR Lithium Inc leads with 39 patent families, followed closely by Green Li-Ion Pte Ltd with 38. Both entered the corpus recently and built their portfolios rapidly in the most recent filing window.
The field is classified as Growth. Three-year filing volume is 205% above the prior three-year window on a multi-year basis. Annual filing peaked in 2023 and has eased since, but 2024 and 2025 figures are likely understated due to publication lag, so the recent dip should not be read as a decline.
H01M (batteries, cells, and fuel cells) and C22B (metal extraction and refining) are the two dominant IPC classes, reflecting that direct recycling of battery cells and hydrometallurgical metal recovery are the primary technical routes. Downstream steps such as compound synthesis (C01G, C01B, C01D), separation processes (B01D) and waste disposal (B09B) are represented at much lower levels.
The most-cited work in the corpus covers a flotation method for recovering Li-ion battery materials (256 citations), recycling of coated electrode materials (48 citations), relithiation in oxidizing conditions (36 citations, cited twice in the top list), and a lithium-ion battery recycling method (35 citations). A Chinese-language patent on extracting lithium from waste liquor generated during recycling also ranks in the top five by citation count.
The most active co-filing cluster identified in the evidence is within the Brunp group: Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology co-filed with Hunan Brunp Recycling Technology on 10 families and with Hunan Brunp EV Recycling on 6 families. Cross-organisational collaboration outside this group is not prominent in the current evidence.
Query this patent data yourself
Filings, assignees and technology clusters, reachable from Eureka, from Claude via the Patsnap connector, or from your own code over MCP and REST.
Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.