Rocklink India sets up lithium-ion battery and rare earth magnet recycling facility in Sikandrabad, UP

Rocklink India Pvt. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rocklink Group, has established an integrated recycling facility at the UPSIDC Industrial Area in Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh. The facility is designed to process lithium-ion batteries, rare earth magnets, and metal-bearing industrial waste, contributing to material recovery and circular supply chains in India.

The facility has an initial lithium-ion battery recycling capacity of 10,000 tonnes per year. It also includes rare earth magnet dismantling and processing operations with a capacity of 60 tonnes per month. A rare earth chloride processing line, with a capacity of 1,500 tonnes per year, is scheduled for completion in Q1 2026.

Leonard Alexander Ansorge, Director of Rocklink India Pvt. Ltd., stated that “The establishment of this facility marks an important step in building advanced recycling infrastructure for critical materials in India. With capabilities to process lithium-ion batteries and rare earth magnets, we aim to support the development of a circular ecosystem for critical raw materials that are essential to electric mobility, renewable energy systems, and advanced manufacturing.”

The company’s EPR-registered lithium-ion battery recycling plant is designed to process 95 types of pre- and post-consumer battery scrap. It has completed commissioning of its lithium-ion recycling technology (R2), which processes battery scrap into recoverable components while managing volatile organic compounds.

The process can handle different battery formats, sizes, and chemistries, with systems for capturing and treating volatile organic compounds through an encapsulated process and advanced waste gas treatment systems. The recycling process reports over 98 percent recovery efficiency for metals such as aluminium, copper, and iron, and produces black mass for further refining.

Rocklink India also plans to include battery refurbishment operations at the facility. This will involve testing, balancing, and pack manufacturing to enable reuse of battery cells and extend their life cycle.

The facility includes operations for recycling rare earth magnets, including NdFeB, SmCo, and AlNiCo alloys used in motors, generators, and industrial equipment. Dismantling lines are used to process magnet-containing assemblies into uniform batches.

The company is expanding its Magcycle™ reverse logistics model, introduced in Europe in 2018, to India. The system is intended to support collection and routing of magnet scrap for recycling.

Rocklink India follows a “Know Your Material (KYM)” approach, supported by in-house laboratory testing and grading systems to analyse material composition and determine recycling pathways. Materials not suitable for direct recycling are processed into rare earth chlorides at the facility’s processing unit, which includes a 22-metre direct-heated rotary kiln for calcination of metal-bearing industrial waste.

The company is working with startups, research institutions, and government stakeholders to improve dismantling processes, material recovery, and domestic supply chains for critical raw materials.

Also read: Navigating the challenges of EV battery recycling: A problem-solution perspective