Mentions of black mass in company earnings have grown — including recent instances from commodities trader Glencore Plc and chemicals giant BASF SE. Three market researchers — Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Fastmarkets and S&P Global — have launched regular price assessments of the material since April.
The metallic powder is made by crushing and shredding batteries or battery cells, extracting unwanted elements, then refining the remainder. For now, factory scrap generated in the production of batteries makes up the majority of the input material. At recent prices, nickel-cobalt-manganese batteries contain an average metal value of about $10,040 for every ton of cells, according to Fastmarkets. Materials based on LFP chemistry have a much lower value of $3,935 per ton, but can be more costly and technically challenging to process into black mass. That means less room for recyclers to make profit.