RECYCLEKARO, a leading player in e-waste and lithium-ion battery recycling, today inaugurated its Rare Earths and Advanced Materials Research Centre at Wada, Palghar, near Mumbai. The centre marks a strategic step towards the company’s urban mining and advanced materials capabilities, focused on optimising the extraction of critical and rare earth metals from end-of-life electronics, lithium-ion batteries, and other complex e-waste streams. This will enable the company to scale its extraction capabilities for rare earths and advanced materials rapidly and sustainably.
Spread across 5 acres, RECYCLEKARO’s Wada R&D facility has been conceived as a research-led, long-term platform that will evolve over the next five years. The centre will drive deeper material understanding and process optimisation, enabling the organised recycling ecosystem to play a more meaningful role in India’s strategic materials roadmap. The research agenda will focus on priority areas including rare earth recovery, advanced separation and purification, battery materials optimisation, and scalable process development for higher yield and purity. Insights from the centre will be integrated into RECYCLEKARO’s rare earth recovery initiatives as the company moves towards scaling a 20,000 metric tonnes (MT) processing capacity exclusively for rare earths.
RECYCLEKARO currently has the processing capacity of 24,500 MT of e-waste and 10,000 MT of lithium-ion battery waste, building a strong operational base to support responsible resource recovery at scale. The Wada research centre is intended to accelerate the next phase of this evolution—building indigenous scientific and process capability to strengthen the country’s mineral security.
To build sustained capability, RECYCLEKARO will invest around ₹500 crore by 2030, in a phased manner, to develop a world-class research infrastructure and undertake a structured talent build-out over the next 12 to 24 months. The company plans to onboard research scientists, PhDs and doctoral researchers, and specialised roles across disciplines such as materials science, metallurgy, and chemical engineering. The centre’s roadmap will be anchored by a phased pipeline of research programs to continually strengthen recovery pathways and improve process efficiencies over time.
Rajesh Gupta, Founder and Managing Director, Evergreen Recyclekaro, said,
“India’s mineral security must be strengthened not only through imports or mining, but also through what we can recover. This centre will advance the science of urban mining by improving material understanding, recovery pathways, and process efficiencies, so end-of-life products can become a more reliable resource for a circular and self-reliant India”
As part of its research strategy, RECYCLEKARO is strengthening active industry-academia collaborations with leading Indian institutions including IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad along with other leading academic institutions across the country, with scientists working closely alongside RECYCLEKARO’s technical and operations teams on applied research programs. In parallel, the company has also partnered with overseas companies to accelerate its learning curve and align its research with globally benchmarked practices.
The new centre builds on RECYCLEKARO’s established work in responsible resource recovery. With over 13 years of experience, the company has worked with some of India’s leading consumer electronics brands to scientifically manage their e-waste. RECYCLEKARO also operates around 1,200 touchpoints across India, supporting the country’s transition towards more sustainable, circular resource systems.
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