IDTechEx forecasts that US$110 billion of critical materials will be recovered annually from secondary sources by 2045, with a combined weight of more than 3.3 million tonnes. IDTechEx predicts that the critical material recovery market will grow at a CAGR of 12.7% from 2025-2045.

Annual value of critical material recovery market from 2025-2045. Source: IDTechEx

Critical material recovery from secondary sources looks to alleviate growing global material supply risks and their impact on regional economies. Critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare-earths elements, platinum group metals, silicon, and other semiconductors underpin all modern technology.

However, the high geographical localization of critical material market supply chains—both primary critical mineral deposits and processing steps - presents major risks to many global economies. These factors are creating a strong market pull for critical material recovery technology that utilizes secondary raw materials as an alternative to primary sources.

Fortunately, notes IDTechEx, secondary raw materials are compelling sources for critical material recovery. Global megatrends in mass digitalization across consumer, transport, energy, communication, and industrial sectors have consolidated large volumes of critical materials into devices and equipment. The result of this is that the content of critical materials in anthropogenically derived sources is often higher than in primary mineral deposits.

As the volume of critical material containing equipment reaching end-of-life increases year-on-year, the secondary source stream for critical material recovery becomes ever more valuable.

IDTechEx’s report, “Critical Material Recovery 2025-2045: Technologies, Markets, Players”, evaluates the critical material market, analyzing the content of key secondary sources and forecasting the volume of secondary raw materials recoverable by 2045.

Critical material recovery technologies are largely ready to go; it is just a question of how easily they may be repurposed for secondary material sources. Critical material extraction and recovery technologies pioneered for primary mineral processing are scalable with high recovery efficiency, making them well-positioned for deployment in secondary source streams.

A major challenge in deployment remains adapting the processes to the distinct composition of secondary materials, which contain complex mixtures of critical materials with plastics, adhesives, films, low-value metals, and inorganic material.

The report evaluates 13 critical material extraction and recovery technologies, providing case studies on their commercial application in secondary sources.

Looking forward, critical platinum group metal (PGM) recovery from secondary sources will dominate market value share in 2025, but Li-ion battery technology metal and rare-earth element markets will emerge rapidly thereafter, according to IDTechEx.

The high market value of palladium, platinum, and rhodium and their high density in automotive scrap has defined the established PGM secondary source market for decades. However, growing consolidation of critical materials in decarbonized energy and transport technologies will drive a significant value transfer into their associated applications. As large volumes of electric vehicles reach their end-of-life by 2045, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese from batteries and rare-earth elements from drive motor magnets will emerge to represent the overwhelming majority of recoverable value.