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Coventry University wins National Recycling Award for strengthening the UK’s ability to retain critical mineral supply chains
Dr Raouf Hosseini, KTP Associate at Research Centre for Discoveries in Life Sciences, Max Nagle, Marketing & Communications Manager at the SER Group, and Professor Sebastian Fernaud
University news / Research news / Business news
Tuesday 03 March 2026
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Coventry University has won the National Recycling Award 2025 for Waste Management Energy Innovation.
Together with Cellcycle, one of the UK’s leading lithium battery recycling companies, Coventry University developed the LithiumCycle™ process, a pioneering bio-based, closed-loop solution for end-of-life lithium batteries.
The UK currently has no refining capabilities or closed-loop solution for end-of-life lithium batteries, an urgent gap that threatens the nation’s net zero ambitions and undermines its electrification strategy. However, the LithiumCycle™ process is a sustainable bioleaching process which recovers metals from lithium batteries.
This award, in partnership with the SER Group, is demonstrating that bioleaching can provide secondary source of metals not just from electronic waste, as we previously demonstrated, but also from batteries and in fact from most metal-containing waste streams.
As the newly published Critical Minerals Strategy sets the UK's long-term ambition for securing critical minerals and harnessing our competitive advantage in recycling and innovative midstream processing, our new project in partnership with Advanced Alloys Services (AAS) in Sheffield, targeting super-alloys processes, is demonstrating that bioleaching-technology provides a sustainable answer to this global problem.
Sebastien Fernaud, Professor in Enterprise and Innovation in Healthcare Technologies at Coventry University’s Research Centre for Discoveries in Life Sciences
The Bioleaching Research Group at Coventry University previously demonstrated the successful development of bioleaching processes for the recovery of precious metals from e-waste in partnership with N2S, which led to the creation of Bioscope Ltd in Cambridge, which won the NRA 2021 award and the Innovate-UK-KTP award for the category “Changing the World”.
Supported by Innovate UK KTP, the LithiumCycle™ process tackles the UK’s reliance on overseas refining and strengthens the UK’s ability to retain critical mineral supply chains.
This recognition reflects the strength of the innovation across our organisation and the collaborative impact of our Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Coventry University. The LithiumCycle™ process is helping to advance the UK’s efforts to build a more sustainable critical-minerals landscape and a stronger, more resilient battery supply chain. It’s an exciting step forward for everyone involved in delivering this work.
Gary Mo, Managing Director of the SER Group
Find out more about research at Coventry University.
