From battery waste to industrial metals: Inside Metastable Materials' Bengaluru refinery

India imports most of the critical metals used in batteries, even though spent lithium-ion batteries, whose volume is growing every year, contain many of these materials. 

Bengaluru-based Metastable Materials was founded on a simple idea: those spent batteries are not waste to be processed but are ore to be refined.

Founded in October 2021 by IIT Roorkee graduates Shubham Vishvakarma and Manikumar Uppala, the company extracts lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and aluminium from spent batteries and sells them as refined commodity metals.

The founders first developed the underlying chemistry while they were in college. Uppala studied mechanical and materials engineering before specialising in machine design and manufacturing at NBC Bearings, part of the CK Birla Group. Vishvakarma also worked at the company’s advanced materials division.

Turning batteries into metals

Metastable buys spent lithium-ion batteries, dismantles them, and refines the materials inside into high-purity metals.

“We are a sustainable raw material supplier," says Vishvakarma. “And we just happen to be a really good refiner.”

The process runs end to end, from battery procurement and dismantling to refining and metal recovery. Batteries are dismantled under water, which eliminates the fire risk and toxic gas release associated with conventional crushing methods.

At the centre of the process is a patented and trademarked reaction called Integrated Carbothermal Reduction. According to the company, this is what differentiates its approach from conventional battery recycling.

Most recycling operations use external chemicals to break the bonds between metals. Metastable’s process does not. "We found a way for what is inside the battery to react with something else inside the battery," says Vishvakarma. 

"Without adding anything from the outside,” he adds. 

Once the reaction is complete, individual metals are separated using their physical properties. Copper is recovered under pressure, lithium is dissolved in water, and nickel and cobalt are separated through magnetism.

"Simpler things, but effective," says Vishvakarma. 

Building the process required the company to develop much of its equipment in-house. 

Metastable designs and builds most of its machinery, including magnetic separators, density separators, agitators, boilers, furnaces, mills and shredders. 

The team also built what it describes as one of India’s most compact zero-liquid-discharge systems, allowing all liquid waste generated during processing to be recycled on site. The company holds five patents, including one international filing.

Who buys the metals?

As Metastable produces refined commodity metals rather than battery-specific intermediates, its customer base extends beyond the battery industry.

Lithium is sold to glass manufacturers, ceramics producers, cement companies, and grease manufacturers.

Nickel's largest global consumer remains the stainless-steel industry, and Metastable’s output can feed into that supply chain. 

Vishvakarma notes that meeting industry requirements around purity, contamination levels, and particle size remains an ongoing challenge.

Cobalt is used in pigment manufacturing and magnet production. Copper goes into casting and bus bar manufacturing. Aluminium is primarily sold into automotive casting applications.

On the supply side, Metastable sources spent batteries from a range of suppliers, from local scrap dealers in Delhi to large two-wheeler and four-wheeler OEMs. The company works closely with suppliers on the logistics and safety requirements involved in transporting batteries.

Before supply begins at scale, Metastable works with customers to develop product specifications.

For magnet manufacturers, for example, this means determining acceptable levels of manganese contamination in cobalt, since manganese can affect magnetic performance. NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) cell manufacturers are another major customer category.

The business model is straightforward. Metastable buys batteries at market prices and sells refined metals based on commodity benchmarks, including the London Metal Exchange, the Shanghai Metal Exchange, MCX India, and the Bombay Metal Exchange.

Final pricing depends on purity, volume and customer relationships.

Revenue began flowing in 2025. The company’s Bengaluru facility has an installed processing capacity of 1,500 tonnes per year and has doubled utilisation every quarter over the last three quarters.

Vishvakarma says the goal is to eventually operate at 80% to 90% utilisation.

According to IMARC Group, the global battery recycling market was valued at $18 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $32.9 billion by 2034. In India, Metastable competes with companies including Attero Recycling, Lohum, BatX Energies and Tata Chemicals.

Scaling up

Metastable has raised two rounds of funding so far.

The company raised a pre-seed round in January 2022 led by Akshay Singhal and Kartik Hajela of Log9 Materials, followed by a seed round in 2023 from Surge (Peak XV Partners' accelerator programme, formerly Sequoia India & SEA), Speciale Invest, Theia Ventures, and Climate9ers. The company has not disclosed the funding amounts.

The capital was used to build two factories; to file patents and build a team of more than 50 employees across its office and manufacturing facilities.

For now, the focus is on increasing capacity. “We have proven that this is better,” says Vishvakarma. “Now we have to scale it. We will build as fast as we can. Plants still take time to build; these are physical assets."

That means additional factories and the teams required to operate them.

Since 2024, Metastable has been operating one office and two factories: a half-acre facility in Bengaluru’s Harohalli Industrial Area and a second facility in Delhi, chosen for its proximity to battery feedstock supply.

The next phase will involve expanding its footprint. Site scouting is already underway, with Vishvakarma travelling through Rajasthan to evaluate potential locations.

The company also continues to develop new processes, with patent filings remaining a priority.

In 2026, Metastable is focused on one thing: scale.