Friday, July 18, 2025

 

Zohran Mubarak: The Battle Begins


Saint Sun — a myth

One day, a young prince died in the city of Unch in the Indian subcontinent. The boy had had great respect and love for a Shia Ismaili Pir Shams. (Pir means saint and Shams means Sun – Saint Sun.) The king was devastated; he ordered his magistrates and jurists to get a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad because only he could revive the prince. Failure to do so would result in severe punishment for them and their families. They went to Pir Shams and begged him to come because otherwise they would be victims of the king’s wrath.

Pir Shams came to the palace and, without invoking Allah, held the prince by arm who then came back to life. The prince recognized Pir Shams and they both left the palace. The nonbelievers were stunned. They shamed Pir Shams and charged him with acting like God. Pir Shams and the boy left the town. When it dawned upon Pir Shams, while he was meditating, that he had played the role of God, he removed his skin from head to toe as penalty. He, with the boy, returned to the city and gave his skin to the people.

Pir Shams and the boy were hungry but no one wanted to give or sell them food. Eventually, Pir Shams was able to get raw mutton, but was unable to get fire to cook it, so he prompted the Sun to descend and thus was able to cook the mutton.

The people were terrified by the heat and started burning, and they thought the Day of Judgement had arrived.

Once the mutton was cooked, the Sun went back to its celestial abode.

(This Ismaili saint Pir Shams — died 1356 CE — should not be confused with Mawlana Rumi’s spiritual mentor Shams Tabrizi — 1185–1248 CE).

The People’s Sun — today’s reality

  • 350,000 people are homeless in NYC as of April 2025.
  • 53% of New Yorkers’ debt has gone up due to high food costs. The number is 62% for New Yorkers, with children, who are under more debt.
  • $4200 is the rent New Yorkers pay for 1 bedroom apartment — the highest in the country.
  • 123 billionaires with total net worth of $759 billion belong to NYC, the most of any city in the world.

Prior to losing the Democratic primary for NYC mayor in June 2025, Andrew Cuomo had been governor of New York state from 2011 to 2021. He was accused of cheating and screwing immigrant workers who cleaned the subways during the COVID 19 pandemic.

The people of New York City, when Cuomo was governor, suffered many cuts in Medicaid, public schools weren’t provided enough money because of austerity measures, and it was the same with the New York City’s subway system.

Corruption, inequality, injustice, police brutality, unemployment, underpaid, overworked, frustrated New Yorkers screamed enough is enough. They brought Zohran (means Sun) on the NYC mayoral platform making so many people happyZohran Kwame Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party was also supported by the Working Families Party. He won the primary.

Zohran Mubarak

Zohran Mubarak to the US ruling class.

The word “mubarak” is of Arabic origin but is also used in many non-Arab countries and means “auspicious, blessed, lucky propitious, happy.” It is used in greetings such as Eid Mubarak,” “Diwali Mubarak,” Christmas Mubarak,” Wedding Mubarak,” “Ramzan Mubarak,” etc.

Gheraoe-d (Encircled or Besieged)

We were gheraoed by every Age,
No one ever came to our rescue!
Then, one day, we gheraoed them,
And every tyrant shouted his rage.
No reason to worry:
We shall rise soon despite the pain.
And every city which is now dark
Will see the light once again.

Revolutionary Pakistani poet Habib Jalib- Tariq Ali’s translation.

Jalib wrote the poem in solidarity with Indian workers.

The rise of a people’s Sun burned the tyrants badly. The tyrants — the elites, racists, and moneyed class of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party; the Israeli Lobby; Israeli assets; Israeli agents; the billionaires; the media moguls; corporate bosses; Modi’s Hindutva supporters; and so many others shouted their rage.

Mamdani’s parents Mira Nair, a filmmaker, and Mehmood Mamdani, an academic, are Indians. So why are Modi’s supporters opposing Mamdani? Well, answering a question, Mamdani uttered the truth: like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a “war criminal” too.

Mamdani besieged

A 100% Communist Lunatic” is what President Donald Trump called Mamdani.

Trump is 50% wrong, Mamdani is not a communist otherwise he would have said: “Let’s nationalize all industries; tech companies; universities; pharmaceutical companies; all financial institutes, including banks; Trump Towers, and so on and make common people’s life easy and give each family a house, free education, free healthcare, 10 hour work week, etc.”

Trump is 50% correct on the lunatic thing. Mamdani is a lunatic because:

  • Only a lunatic would think about providing free bus service for the common people.
  • Only a lunatic would criticize the 24/7/365 Israeli genocide of Palestinians, and risk losing easy-election-campaign money and support from the Israel Lobby to win the New York Mayor’s election with free trips to Israel.
  • Only a lunatic like Mamdani would refuse to be an Israeli asset. He could have become one of the Israeli assets like Hillary ClintonDonald TrumpJoe BidenNancy PelosiAndrew CuomoKamala HarrisHakeem Jeffries, and uncountable others in the Congress, US government, state governments, news media, universities, corporations, armed forces, and so many other organizations. Don’t be surprised, Israel is over the entire US body — like an end-of-life stage of cancer. Only people like Mamdani can save this sick state of affairs and people like Kshama Sawant and her Workers Strike Back can make it alive again.

In the first week of November 2026, Trump will most probably see 100% lunatic in the US House with the name of Kshama Sawant. The US desperately needs her, and many more like her.

“Zohran the Destroyer” is the title given by Fox TV’ reporter. Zohran is the destroyer, indeed. New York City is stinking with the Farts Of Xenophobes which he is going to eliminate and make it a nice smelling city.

Civilised people in America don’t eat like this,” says US House representative Brandon Gill (Republican from Texas). He was criticizing Mamdani for eating with hands rather than fork, knife, and spoon. A photo of Gill’s father-in-law Dinesh D’Souza, of Indian origin had been posted eating with his hands.

The “civilized people” use hands to accumulate all the money for themselves, to send arms and ammunition to Israel and other countries to kill people, to sign bills cutting Medicaid, etc., and so on.

Many more such criticisms have been hurled, suffice it to say much hatred has been spewed against Mamdani.

Interrogation by US-based Israeli agents

“Do you recognize Israel as a state? Does it have a right to exist?” and six other questions asked by Politico’s Jason Beeferman and Jeff Coltin were all related to Israel and antisemitism.

“Does the State of Israel have the right to exist?” was the question Steven Colbert asked on his show.

“The first foreign visit by a mayor of New York is always considered significant. Where would you go first?” was one of the questions asked by one of the moderators David Ushery during the June 4, 2025, NBC Democratic mayoral primary debate.

Mamdani’s reply: “I would stay in New York City. My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five Burroughs and focus on that.”

“Mr. Mamdani, can I just jump in? Would you visit Israel as mayor?” was the question by the Israeli agent Melissa Russo, pretending to be another moderator, who just couldn’t accept Mamdani’s concern for New Yorkers.

Mamdani’s reply: “I’ve said in a UJA [United Jewish Appeal? – Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, Inc.] questionnaire that I believe that you need not travel to Israel to stand up for Jewish New Yorkers. And that is what I will be doing as the mayor. I’ll be standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and I’ll be meeting them wherever they are across the five Burroughs, whether that’s in their synagogues and temples or at their homes or at the subway platform because ultimately we need to focus on delivering on their concerns.”

Agent Russo was mad: “Answer just yes or no. Do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?”

Mamdani: “I believe Israel has the right to exist …”

Agent Russo jumped in: “As a Jewish state?”

Mamdani:: “As a state with equal rights.”

Now Mamdani was attacked by Cuomo, an Israeli asset running for NYC mayor. Watch the entire video of this exchange after 1:56 here.

Israel has occupied Palestine and has been existing, expanding, and executing Palestinians regularly. So the question wasn’t: As a mayor, will you stop the genocide and end Palestinians’ misery?

The battle begins

All the forces arrayed against Mamdani are going to use full power with all means, right or wrong, available at their disposal to defeat Mamdani in the election. They’ll go to any extreme because, this time it’s a people’s candidate and not a billionaires’ candidate — which is never acceptable in the US.

Mamdani should counter his opponents as he did during the June 12 second and final debate. When Cuomo, whose PACs received $25 million from billionaires, went after Mamdani’s inexperience, Mamdani shot back:

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace, I’ve never cut medicaid, I’ve never stolen 100s of millions of dollars from the MTA, I’ve never hounded the 13 women who have credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I’ve never sued for their gynecological records, and I have not done those things because I am not you Mr. Cuomo. And further more the name is Mamdani, m-a-m-d-a-n-i, learn to get it right.”

Mamdani has a once in the US lifetime chance to change things, if not in the country, then at least in the most populated city.

The country’s major newspaper, the New York Times, during the 2024 presidential election, refused to publish hacked information on Donald Trump and his VP candidate JD Vance, but in case of Mamdani, it didn’t hold off on publishing hacked information, supplied by one “who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race.” The info was about Mamdani’s 2009 college admission form. The paper had stopped endorsing any candidates except presidential but it criticized Mamdani in an editorial which “effectively served as an anti-endorsement,” Gabe Whisnant noted in Newsweek.

Mamdani should always remember his middle name Kwame, named after independent Ghana’s first Prime Minister and then President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, “Pan-Africanist visionary” who was voted as “Africa’s Man of the Millennium.” By the grace of Uncle Sam, in the form of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nkrumah was overthrown, like many others before and after him, while he was on a state visit to China and Vietnam in February 1966.

Nkrumah wrote in his book Dark Days in Ghana what methods the US uses in ousting foreign leaders:

“It has been one of the tasks of the CIA and other similar organizations to discover … potential quislings and traitors in our midst, and to encourage them, by bribery and the promise of political power, to destroy the constitutional government of their countries.”

Former Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York lost in 2024 when the AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) poured in $20 million to help their opponents. Bush and Bowman had called for ceasefire in Gaza.

This happens regularly to many candidates. Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard were the victims too. More than two decades back, Alexander Cockburn pointed out,

“Don’t you think that if Arab-American groups or African-American groups targeted an incumbent white liberal, maybe Jewish, congressperson, and shipped in money by the truckload to oust the incumbent, the rafters would shake with bellows of outrage.”

Mamdani should also stay away from the “Black Misleadership Class,” as Black Agenda Report constantly reminds us.

Professor Hamid Dabashi has a warning too:

“All the powers of predatory capitalism, militarised fascism and genocidal Zionism have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.”

Don’t be Obama or Sanders

As President, Barack Obama had a great opportunity to change the course of ruthless capitalism that it has been on for many decades. He and his advisors instead strengthened those very forces who were responsible for the 2007-2008 financial crisis by bailing them out.

But the Obama team did not rescue the victims of those monster-sized companies: more than 16% of the homeowners lost their houses via foreclosure or some other method, that is, approximately ten million families were forced to vacate their houses.

Almost all the criminal bankers went scot-free.

Multimillionaire Obama is a system’s man who is making millions and is ever ready to protect it when he senses even slight danger as he did it in 2020 when it seemed Bernie Sanders might overtake Joe Biden.

Bernie Sanders, an independent (but works with the Democratic Party), had twice, in 2016 and 2020, a chance to form a third party when he lost the presidential candidacy to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively. His supporters were crazy for him and he could have changed the course of history. But no, he betrayed his cause and his supporters, and supported Hillary and Biden, instead.

So Zohran, don’t be like Obama or Sanders. If the anti-people-forces succeed in derailing your pursuit, join hands with Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein to form a third party. If Elon Musk with his hundreds of billions could make a third party, America Party, you could do too with your millions of voters, as the following video of yours acknowledges the voting power of people. Even if you’re elected, the Israel Lobby, the New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and all others will try to make your victory as miserable as they can as Cuomo had done with former mayor Bill de Blasio during his 2014 – 2021 rule.

Let the battle begin. May the good for the people triumph this time.

B.R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.comRead other articles by B.R..

 Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

THERE ARE NO REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS


China is a modern superpower, as is the US, but a qualitatively different superpower. The US uses military aggression, coups, and sanctions to impose US corporate interests worldwide. China is a peaceful power that respects national sovereignty, mutual development, and non-interference.

 Despite opposing imperialism, a tendency in the Western left is to recycle Western anti-China narratives that liken Chinese trade relations to Western imperial conduct, as in Sri Lanka and the Congo. Others have written of Chinese investments in the Occupied West Bank, and even criticize China for lack of aid to Cuba – clearly not issues the Western powers have problems with. 

 The US empire has at least 750 military bases in 80 countries. China has just one, in Djibouti – part of a UN mission against piracy. The US has continued wars against other countries on a non-stop basis, while China has invaded no country nor started any wars in close to half a century. The US instigated over 25 coups and coup attempts in Latin America just between 2000 and 2020. China has sponsored no coup attempts on any government. The US imposes blockades and “sanctions” warfare on at least 39 nations. China imposes no sanctions on anyone. The US regularly launches drone attacks on the people of other countries. China has launched no drone attacks on anyone. China is no imperial superpower, but a peaceful one. 

China is the outstanding example of a Third World country developing into a superpower despite the West’s centuries-long efforts to torpedo its progress. China engages in “win-win” economic relations with other nations. Its loans and investment are carried out based on equality, consensus and joint benefit, unlike the predatory behavior of the IMF and Western lending institutions. China is helping other countries of the Global South break out of the underdevelopment that colonialism and imperialism have imposed on their countries for 500 years.

Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

 At present, over 150 countries have chosen to participate in China’s economic program called the Belt and Road Initiative. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega explained why:

The People’s Republic of China has brought progress, benefits, development to peoples who were colonized, and later became independent, but who were then subjugated under the boot of the interests of the powers that had colonized them, leaving those peoples in poverty, with people in misery, people going hungry, people in illiteracy, with infant mortality, in Africa, in Asia. And the People’s Republic of China has been developing a policy bringing benefits to developing countries, without setting any conditions… The powers that have been colonialists and neocolonialists, like the US, like Europe… have not stopped being colonialists. They still are neocolonialists. They have not stopped being criminals. They still are criminals. They still are killers. 

China’s role in helping other countries to develop has been noted by several anti-imperialist leaders. Fidel Castro rejected the notion that China was an imperial power. “China has objectively become the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries. I do not hesitate to say that it is already the main engine of the world economy… The role that China has been playing in the United Nations, including the Security Council, is an important element of balance, progress and safeguard of world peace and stability.” Of the Chinese leader he said, “Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life.”

Present Cuban President Diaz-Canel also had high praise for Xi Jinping.

Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez likewise said, “one of the greatest events of the 20th century was the Chinese Revolution.” Chavez considered that an alliance with China constituted a bulwark against imperialism — a “Great Wall against American hegemonism… China is large but it’s not an empire. China doesn’t trample on anyone, it hasn’t invaded anyone, it doesn’t go around dropping bombs on anyone.” 

 Bolivian President Arce said: “We have built bridges of trust between the two countries and maintain a very positive bilateral relationship.” Evo Morales, the former president, said Bolivia and China “maintain a relationship characterized by wide-ranging and diverse cooperation and reciprocity.” China “works in a joined-up way with other countries and benefits the peoples of the world; the opposite to what was imposed on us for decades by the US, where predatory, individualistic and competitive capitalism looted our people’s resources for the benefit of transnational corporations.” “China develops, and helps, invests, without any conditions, just to support our development. China is always ready to cooperate unconditionally.”

 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared, “Between China and Venezuela there is a model relationship, a model of what should be the relationship between a superpower like China, the great superpower of the 21st century, and an emerging, heroic, revolutionary and socialist country like Venezuela… China has inaugurated a new era of the emergence of non-colonialist, non-imperialist, non-hegemonic superpowers.”

 Former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa spoke highly of Chinese aid to the Citizens Revolution. China’s assistance is “an example for Latin America and for the rest of the world.”

 Burkina Faso revolutionary President Ibrahim Traoré said Chinese aid was a “testament to a mutually beneficial partnership.”

 Even President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia recently said at the ASEAN summit, “China has consistently defended the interests of developing countries. They consistently oppose oppression, oppose imperialism, oppose colonialism, oppose apartheid, The People’s Republic of China defends liberation struggles in countries that are still oppressed by imperialism and colonialism.” 

 Recent Western Left anti-China Stories

Yet, despite the testimonies of these anti-imperialist Third World leaders, some progressives still highlight West’s anti-China narratives, such as in Sri Lanka and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Sri Lanka

The China debt-trap myth arose from Sri Lanka’s port Hambantota, that China lent money to the country to build the port, knowing Sri Lanka could not make it viable. This led Sri Lanka to default on the loans, and Beijing demanded the port as collateral. Chatham House and The Atlantic, both organs of the ruling elite, debunked this. First, the Hambantota Port project was not proposed by China, but by Sri Lanka. Second, Sri Lanka’s debt crisis resulted not from Chinese lending, but from Western loans. Third, there was no debt-for-asset swap. Rather, China leased the port for $1.1 billion, money Sri Lanka then used to pay down debts to the West. Chatham House concludes, “Sri Lanka’s debt trap was thus primarily created as a result of domestic policy decisions and was facilitated by Western lending and monetary policy, and not by the policies of the Chinese government.”

 China in Africa

Liberia’s former minister of public works, W Gyude Moore noted that under European colonialism “there has never been a continental-scale infrastructure building program for Africa’s railways, roads, ports, water filtration plants and power stations…China has built more infrastructure in Africa in two decades than the West has in centuries.”

 At the most recent Forum on China–Africa Cooperation in 2024, 53 of the 54 African countries chose to attend. China pledged $50 billion over the next three years on top of the $40 billion already invested.

 Dee Knight took up the issue of China’s exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo propagandized in the book Cobalt Red. He drew on Isabelle Minnon’s report, “Industrial Turn-Around in Congo?” She wrote, “China has responded to the DRC’s need to have partners who invest in industrialization.” The West had bled Congo dry through debts that prevented its development. China brought large-scale investment on a new basis, combining financing for industrial mining and public infrastructure – roads, railroads, dams, health and education facilities.

 Minion stated the result: “After decades of almost non-existent industrial production, the country became and remains the world’s leading producer of cobalt and, by 2023, became the world’s third largest producer of copper.” This “puts an end to the monopoly of certain Western countries and their large companies,” which just plundered the Congo. Furthermore, China cancelled $28 million in interest-free loans, and gave $17 million in support to the DRC.

 During the Covid pandemic, China announced that it also forgave 23 interest-free loans for 17 African nations.  This is in addition to China’s cancellation of more than $3.4 billion in debt and restructured $15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019.

 Chinese investments in Israel

Chinese trades with Israel, as with all other countries, to establish mutually beneficial economic relations, to counter the US goal of turning countries against China. China’s trade with Israel is qualitatively different from that of the US, Britain, France, Germany and others since China does not export weaponry to Israel used to slaughter Palestinians and peoples in surrounding countries. 

Some have written of Chinese business involvement in the occupied West Bank. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese (which brought US sanctions on her) substantiates one such instance. China’s role contradicts its vote in favor of the 2024 UN General Assembly resolution calling for no trade or investments with Israeli operations in the occupied territories. 

 Yet China worked hard to unite the divided Palestinian resistance with the recent Beijing Declaration. China has continually denounced the US and Israel in Gaza, upholds the Palestinian right to resist occupation, and has never condemned the October 7, 2023 Hamas breakout attack. China is also a participant in the present The Hague Group calling for “concrete measures” against Israel.

 China and Cuba

Some Western leftists have criticized China for lack of support for Cuba, suffering under a now worsening US blockade. However, China is working to build 55 solar installation complexes there this year, covering Cuba’s daytime shortfall, and another 37 by 2028, for a total of 2,000 megawatts. This aid would meet nearly two-thirds of Cuba’s present-day demand. China has long been a partner of Cuba in terms of trade and investment, participating in the Mariel Special Development Zone, and in projects in the production of medicines, biotechnology and agriculture.

 China, A Superpower that Supports Third World Development

It is a contradiction that many on the Western left are not supportive of China, given that the US rulers have long called China the primacy threat to imperialist domination. 

Recognizing the US’s continued economic and military power, if not superiority, China seeks to avoid a major destructive direct confrontation. China counters the US and Western isolation strategy by fostering a world based on cooperation with all countries, even with the US and its close allies. It focuses on obtaining essential resources for its industry and for economic self-sufficiency to fortify itself in self-defense against the US strategy to isolate it economically and politically, and on meeting countries’ desire for its cheaper goods and investments. As the Third World leaders above say, most of China’s foreign loans are not capitalist investments, but government funds that have been used to free countries from the grip of imperialism.

 That has made it impossible for the West to isolate China. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, Chinese investments in schools, roads, railroads, and other needed infrastructure are generally seen as a welcome change from the neglect and underdevelopment imposed by the imperial First World.  

 Consequently, every year China becomes more and more a world power in relation to the imperialist countries.

 China’s significance for the world lies in being a singular example of a Third World country developing despite the West’s goal to thwart its rise. This is a model for other Third World countries that seek to assert their independence of the West and make their own path.

 In this process, China, which just 75 years ago, had an illiteracy rate of 80%, has just ended poverty for 800 million people, which no capitalist group of countries ever accomplished. China has achieved the fastest growth in living standards of any country in the world. It achieved this without invading, massacring, colonizing and looting other countries, but peacefully, without threatening any other people, and in cooperation with them.

 As Daniel Ortega said:

The self-same ideologues of imperialism state that what worries them is that they see the People’s Republic of China bringing benefits to these Peoples and they feel that there they are losing the power to keep these peoples enslaved…They are upset, outraged, because the People’s Republic of China is making available billions in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America. These are investments for the development of our peoples. They see that as bad for themselves, but why can’t they do the same? Why have they never brought investment with the same conditions that the People’s Republic of China is making available?

The West, with the US at its head, seeks to maintain so-called “Western civilization,” the rule of the white colonizer over the rest of the world. It regards China and Russia as the two major threats to its continued domination and seeks to disable both. China and Russia are drawn into a struggle, where their continued growth, if not existence, is at stake. The more they can neutralize the West’s goal, the more this is a victory for all the oppressed people of the world.

Stansfield Smith, ChicagoALBASolidarity.com, stansfieldsmith100@gmail.com. Stan has been involved in anti-war organizing for 45 years, and has written a number of articles about Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, as well as previous articles related to the subject here. They have appeared in Monthly Review online, Orinoco Tribune, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Popular Resistance, and others. Read other articles by Stansfield.

 

WPI researchers develop cleaner, scalable process to recycle lithium-ion batteries



Findings published in prominent international journal




Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester Polytechnic Institute team creates new method to recycle lithium-ion batteries 

image: 

WPI Professor Yan Wang leads the team who developed the new process.

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Credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute





In a major step forward for sustainable energy technology, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), led by Professor Yan Wang, William B. Smith Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, have developed a new, scalable method to recycle lithium-ion batteries in a way that is both efficient and environmentally friendly. 

The team’s research, titled Upcycling Mixed Spent Ni-Lean Cathodes into Ni-Rich Polycrystalline Cathodes, was recently published in Energy Storage Materials, a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal focused on the topics of materials and energy. The paper details an innovative hydrometallurgical upcycling approach that offers both environmental and performance advantages over traditional recycling methods. 

The process specifically targets spent mixed nickel-lean (Ni-lean) cathode materials, which are commonly found in used lithium-ion batteries. Traditional recycling methods struggle to recover these materials effectively and often rely on energy-intensive processes that produce lower-value outputs. In contrast, Wang’s approach recovers more than 92% of critical metals—nickel, cobalt, and manganese—and turns them into high-performance cathode powders. 

Testing shows that batteries made with these recycled materials perform on par with those made from virgin materials, retaining 88% of their capacity after 500 charge cycles and over 85% capacity after 900 cycles in commercial-scale pouch cells. The new process also uses 8.6% less energy than conventional hydrometallurgical methods and significantly reduces carbon emissions—by 13.9% when compared with traditional recycling, slightly more than with direct upcycling. 

“This work not only addresses the environmental challenges of battery waste but also helps reduce our dependence on mining for critical materials,” said Wang. “We’ve shown that it’s possible to create high-performance batteries from recycled materials at scale, which is essential for building a more sustainable and resilient battery supply chain.” 

This innovation directly tackles two major challenges: the growing volume of battery waste and the global demand for critical materials used in electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies. With industry and policymakers focused on sustainable solutions, this advancement could play a key role in building a more circular and climate-conscious battery economy.