---
title: "Second life or recycling for EV batteries? (research idea)"
description: "Remanufacturing and closed-loop supply chains are growing in the operations research journals, and the first large wave of electric-vehicle batteries is reaching the end of its first life. Should a used battery go to stationary storage, to remanufacturing or straight to recycling, and who should decide?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/second-life-or-recycling-for-ev-batteries
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/second-life-or-recycling-for-ev-batteries.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["operations research", "energy", "supply chain"]
keywords: ["remanufacturing", "closed-loop supply chain", "battery recycling"]
---

# Second life or recycling for EV batteries?

Remanufacturing and closed-loop supply chains are growing in the operations research journals, and the first large wave of electric-vehicle batteries is reaching the end of its first life. Should a used battery go to stationary storage, to remanufacturing or straight to recycling, and who should decide?

## What prompted this

In the operations research journals, "remanufacturing" had 8 papers in July–September 2026 against about 4 expected and "closed-loop supply chain" 9 against 5 (see the [operations research dashboard](/categories/operations-research)). Since October 2025, 107 papers carry a remanufacturing, closed-loop or reverse-logistics keyword (69 in operations research journals). Twelve of them carry a battery keyword, and "second-life batteries" appears on just one paper.

## Questions

- Given a battery's state of health, when is second-life storage worth more than recycling, once testing, repurposing and the risk of failure are priced in?
- How do mineral prices and recycling mandates, such as the recycled-content targets of the EU battery regulation, change that choice?
- Who does better as the owner of used batteries: carmakers, battery makers or third parties?

## Data that could help

Battery ageing data such as the NASA and CALCE datasets (in the [dataset ranking](/rankings/datasets)'s list), mineral prices and storage-market prices.

## Next step

Build a decision model that routes used batteries by state of health, and compare its value under 2023 and 2026 lithium prices.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| remanufacturing | 2 | #1303 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 4, 4, 1, 8, 4, 6, 1, 6, 3, 3, 2, 7, 1, 3, 6, 3, 0, 3, 4, 4, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 1, 2 | 100 |
| closed-loop supply chain | 4 | #525 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 4, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 1, 4, 1, 2, 2, 2, 6, 6, 2, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 5, 8, 3, 4, 4 | 107 |
| battery recycling | 1 | #2881 | 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 0, 1, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 5, 2, 0, 0, 3, 3, 2, 1, 5, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 0, 1 | 40 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Second life or recycling for EV batteries?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/second-life-or-recycling-for-ev-batteries

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-second-life-or-recycling-for-ev-batteries,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Second life or recycling for EV batteries?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/second-life-or-recycling-for-ev-batteries}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).