Briefing on the recycling of used lithium battery

Since the 1990s, with the widespread use of lithium batteries, China has become the world's largest producer, consumer and exporter of lithium batteries. In particular, in recent years, China has introduced a series of major policy measures such as purchase subsidies, tax and fee reduction, research and development support, consumer concessions, and infrastructure. The new energy vehicle market is booming. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that in 2016, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China reached 507,000 and the number of possessions exceeded 1 million, accounting for 50% of the global market. By 2020, the cumulative production and sales will exceed 5 million.

With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, as the "heart" of new energy vehicles, the power lithium battery industry is also growing rapidly. According to the corresponding scrapping standards, the market for power lithium battery recycling has been formed. According to the analysis of lithium battery big data network experts, it is expected that by 2018, China's power lithium battery waste recycling market will take shape, accumulating waste lithium battery over 12GWH, scrapping more than 170,000 tons, recovering cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, The recycling market created by metals such as iron and aluminum will exceed 5.3 billion Yuan, and will exceed 10 billion Yuan by 2020. The market for used lithium battery in 2023 will reach 25 billion Yuan.

At the same time, the dismantling process of these waste lithium batteries will also produce waste gas, waste liquid, waste residue and other pollution. Once the organic electrolyte and heavy metal substances such as cobalt, copper and nickel penetrate into water and soil, it will bring hidden dangers to the ecological environment. It may even endanger human health. If the necessary recycling and disposal of the used lithium battery is not carried out, it will not only cause waste of resources, but also cause certain pollution to the environment. Therefore, it is extremely urgent to speed up the recycling of power lithium batteries, which has become a major issue affecting the development of new energy automobile industry.

In 2016, the National Ecological Civilization Construction Promotion Conference emphasized that the establishment of a green recycling and low-carbon development industrial system, General Secretary Xi and Premier Keqiang Li made important instructions. In recent years, China has successively issued the "Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2012-2020)" "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles", "Electric Vehicle power battery Recycling Technology Policy (2015 Edition)" A number of policy documents, such as the “Regulations on the Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Energy and Storage Battery for New Energy Vehicles”, “Interim Measures for the Administration of the Announcement of the Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Energy and Storage Battery for New Energy Vehicles”, etc., require the reinforcement of power lithium battery cascade utilization and recycling management, research and development of power lithium batteries The recycling policy, the establishment of a recycling system for waste lithium batteries, and the strengthening of industry management and recycling supervision, such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and other governments are also actively exploring relevant content, but the problem of recycling and utilization of power lithium batteries has not been effectively implemented. The main problems currently facing are:

1. The decommissioned battery is more complicated and difficult to disassemble. Waste power lithium batteries include different types, design processes and series and parallel groups, as well as a variety of service time, application models and operating conditions. This causes inconvenience in battery disassembly. The automatic dismantling has high requirements on the flexible configuration of the production line, and the disposal cost is too high; while the manual disassembly affects the battery recycling yield, it is also easy to cause the battery to be short-circuited or leaked, which may cause fire or explosion, resulting in loss of personal property.

2. The retired battery has poor consistency and the quality is not high. Recycling of used lithium-ion batteries must undergo quality testing, including safety assessment, cycle life testing, etc., and the batteries should be sorted and classified before being re-used. Otherwise, consistency cannot be guaranteed. But these test equipments, test costs and test time, analytical modeling, etc. will increase costs. If some problems are not detected and used again, it will increase the safety risk of the entire battery system.

3. The cost of recycling and dismantling is high, and the profit point is low. The domestic recycling system has not yet been established, and the power lithium battery recycling industry has not formed a scale effect. Due to the high cost of the recycling process, the input exceeds the battery value. According to the information provided by China Electric Vehicles 100, the cost of recycling 1 ton of waste lithium iron phosphate power battery is 8540 Yuan, while the revenue from recycled materials is only 8110 Yuan, a loss of 430 Yuan. It is also not economical for energy storage. According to the data of the China Science and Technology Electric Power Research Institute, the comprehensive electricity cost of lithium battery energy storage in 2015 was 0.73 Yuan / kWh, while the cost of lead carbon battery and pumped storage energy was close to 0.4 Yuan / kWh.

4. The recycling policy lacks supervision and implementation is not in place. Despite the introduction of policy documents in China, the establishment of a system for extending the responsibility of producers, and clarifying the responsibilities of new energy vehicle manufacturers, power battery manufacturers, cascade battery manufacturers, and scrap car recycling companies, but because the policies are not mandatory, And the lack of a clear reward and punishment mechanism, coupled with the low efficiency of power lithium battery recycling and reuse, the current power lithium battery related subjects are not profitable, and the implementation of the policy is not high. Based on this, it is recommended that:

The first is to study battery standardization and implement traceability systems. Strengthen the research on the structural design, connection method, process technology, integrated installation and other standardization of power lithium battery, formulate the mandatory standard for power battery coding as soon as possible, and link the traceability system with the announcement management of new energy automobile products to ensure the battery life cycle information record. Improve the convenience and accuracy of testing and evaluation.

The second is the key technology research and development of battery recycling. Key technologies such as disassembly, recombination testing and life prediction of used lithium batteries should be tackled to improve their technological maturity and safety in the production process. At the same time, improve the automation level and recovery efficiency of battery disassembly, recombination and recovery technology, so as to make the recycling and reuse of power lithium battery economically feasible and safe.

The third is to develop and implement incentive measures for power battery recycling. Formulate incentive rules for the recycling and reuse of power lithium batteries, and establish a reward and punishment mechanism. For example, companies that fail to fulfill their obligations in accordance with the recycling policy should be punished, and battery recycling companies and battery recycling enterprises should subsidize according to the number of batteries and capacity, and implement tax incentives to ensure the economics of recycling and recycling enterprises; A parallel system of deposits and rewards can be used to foster consumer awareness of power battery recycling.

The fourth is to encourage business model innovation pilot and promotion applications. Actively innovate business models, and accumulate experience to replicate the development model of circular economy with promotion value. Implement the construction of power lithium battery recycling system, use the subsidy mechanism and preferential policies to improve the enthusiasm of enterprises and consumers, but avoid some speculative enterprises to enter the industry in order to subsidize the follow-up, and form a fair and benign competition mechanism to benefit the industry healthy growth.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.