Deputy to the National People's Congress Chen Xuehua: Accelerate the establishment of a recycling system for retired lithium iron phosphate batteries

[Caixin] As the use of power batteries continues to grow, how to handle decommissioned batteries and effectively recover raw materials has become a new challenge for the lithium battery industry. During the 2026 Two Sessions, Chen Xuehua, a National People’s Congress representative and Chairman of Huayou Cobalt (603799.SH), proposed accelerating the development of a recycling system for lithium iron phosphate batteries to ensure resource security in the industrial chain.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are a type of power battery and are currently the mainstream battery type in China’s new energy vehicles. They are composed of iron, lithium, phosphorus, and oxygen, and do not contain high-value metals such as cobalt and nickel. Because of this, lithium iron phosphate batteries have lower costs than ternary batteries that use cobalt and nickel. From 2021 to 2023, when raw material prices soared, lithium iron phosphate batteries continuously expanded their market share, accounting for 70% of the Chinese market by 2025, with sales reaching 875 gigawatt-hours that year, a year-on-year increase of 66%.