Graphite

What it is

Graphite is a form of carbon used as the anode material in every lithium-ion battery, and as electrodes and refractories in steelmaking.

Why it matters

China dominates both natural mining and synthetic production, and refines essentially all battery-grade anode material.

Circular challenges

Whether graphite re-enters the economy at end-of-life is mostly settled at the design stage. These are the recurring blockers.

• Anode recovery is new

  Battery recyclers historically focused on cathode metals; recovering anode graphite is a recent and partial capability.

• Synthetic competes

  Synthetic graphite from petroleum coke competes with mined graphite — climate footprint depends on which one wins.

• Spheronisation is the bottleneck

  Battery-grade graphite needs to be milled into uniform spherical particles; most of this happens in China.