The latest edition of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone is the first in its flagship device lineup to offer a “closed-loop” system for recycling battery materials, company officials said recently.
Recycling "Indefinitely”
Samsung Electronics said that its “Circular Battery Supply Chain” initiative extracted cobalt from the batteries of discarded Galaxy smartphones and then reused the metal in the newly released Galaxy S25.
Cobalt helps stabilize and optimize the performance of lithium-ion batteries — and because it does not degrade from battery use, it could, in theory, be recycled “indefinitely.”
Half of the S25’s Cobalt Was Recycled
Once used phones are collected, they are dismantled, and the batteries are discharged and processed into “black mass” — a fine powder that can be refined to extract its cobalt.
The consumer electronics giant said that half of the cobalt used in the manufacturing of the S25 came from recycled sources.
Closing the Loop
Samsung officials collected approximately 200 tons of waste battery material from the company’s manufacturing facilities in Vietnam. Those factories produce some of the company’s highest volumes of waste batteries — from defective products or trade-ins shipped from the U.S. — but the country lacks a “proper recycling infrastructure” to reuse their materials.
Officials said Samsung addressed the issue by partnering with other companies to connect cobalt extraction facilities with battery plants in neighboring nations.
Image credit: Samsung Electronics
