Recycling of used batteries

Topic background

It is difficult for ordinary people to clearly understand the remaining capacity of used batteries. If there is no professional repair technology, equipment and personnel, they can only be scrapped and dismantled. In recent years, with the rise of electric vehicles, the environmental problems caused by battery disposal have become more and more serious. At the same time, this has brought business opportunities for the recycling of used batteries.

Any item has old and new, old items are often just a concept of time, and still have functional use, which is the meaning of recycling of used batteries.

There are two ways to recycle used batteries. One is to disassemble used batteries and extract useful materials. The other is to basically maintain the internal and external structure of the battery after sorting, repairing and testing.

At present, some enterprises have explored the second form of direct recycling, and have some practical applications in the small-scale electric vehicle battery recycling market.

Battery classification

Renewable waste batteries are mainly divided into three categories, including lead-acid batteries, lithium-power batteries and super capacitors.

Since its invention more than 100 years ago, lead-acid batteries have remained in the mainstream battery status until today, and are widely used in automobiles, ships, computer room UPS systems, energy storage systems, and industrial and agricultural sectors.

In the field of low-speed vehicles for electric vehicles, when all circles are hesitant about the development of lithium-ion battery electric vehicles, they have quietly achieved rapid development. In Shandong alone, only 96,000 low-speed electric vehicles were produced in 2012, far exceeding the national total output of lithium battery electric vehicles. Due to the low price, safe use, mature technology and continuous improvement of lead-acid batteries, the market holdings will be greatly improved in the future. In 2012, the production and sales volume of lead-acid batteries reached 174.863 million kWh, an increase of 27.3% over the previous year.

Lithium-powered batteries are more energy-efficient and expensive. They have been widely used in small-scale electrical appliances for decades. With the rise of electric vehicles that emphasize battery-specific energy, large-scale power lithium batteries have achieved rapid development, and the output will increase. The reduction in manufacturing costs will in turn further promote the development of electric vehicles and other areas, such as energy storage, computer room UPS systems.

Due to its large storage capacity, the super capacitor can be used as a battery. Compared with other batteries, it has the characteristics of fast charge and discharge speed and long life, and is rapidly entering the electric vehicle and energy storage market.

Battery recycling

The battery life test standard has two key parameters. One is that the remaining capacity is 80% of the factory capacity standard, and the second is the number of times the battery is charged and discharged from 100% to 80% capacity.

In actual use, there are often cases where the battery used as a single unit basically achieves the best use of the battery, but the batteries in series are often discarded due to the existence of individual backward batteries, resulting in the failure of the entire battery capacity to meet the standard.

A typical example is a lithium battery pack for an electric car. In order to ensure the safety of the entire battery, its capacity and life are marked by the worst one or several single cells in the group. When individual cells fail to meet the standard, the whole battery will not meet the standard. Scrap or repair. At this time, most of the single cell batteries are still between 80% and 100%. It is clear that this scrapping has not reached the user's procurement purpose.

In fact, after the overhaul and reorganization, the batteries with the capacity standard can continue to be used in the original post. The batteries with substandard capacity can be used in different stages, and those areas where the cost requirements are strict and the comparative energy requirements are not strict continue. Play the waste heat."

For example, an electric vehicle charging station needs to provide high-power power instantaneously, and quickly charge the electric vehicle. If there is no energy storage device, it will cause severe interference to the existing power grid. The existing charging station solutions are all equipped with high-voltage dedicated lines, which are large in engineering, large in investment, wide in scope, and difficult to enter the urban area. It is difficult for non-electric power enterprises to implement.

The regenerative battery energy storage scheme can store the power during the nighttime low valley period. When the electric vehicle is charged, the energy storage battery provides short-term powerful electric energy. This method does not interfere with the existing power grid, and it is convenient to locate. It can be built in the community, parking lot, office building, and even on-street parking. In addition, the power supply source of such energy storage power stations is also very broad, and conventional power, wind power, photovoltaic power generation, and biomass power generation of enterprises and institutions can supply power to energy storage power stations.

Considerable development value

Whether it is a lead-acid battery, a lithium battery or a super capacitor, there are energy consumption and pollution problems in the production and scrapping process. By repairing and regenerating to extend the life and order utilization, it can be completely “eat dry and squeeze”. Significantly reduce the purchase of new batteries.

In addition, the cost and pollution of repairing regenerative batteries is much smaller than that of new batteries. The cost of a new set of electric bus lithium-ion battery is about 600,000 to 800,000 Yuan, and the lithium-ion battery with the same capacity for repair and regeneration is only 10,000 to 20,000 Yuan, about 3% to 5% of new products. And there is no raw material consumption and pollution during the restoration process. Therefore, recycling and recycling of used batteries has significant environmental and economic value.

In the battery industry, mining and waste battery disassembly are the means of extracting non-ferrous metals for new battery production. The production process of new batteries has huge resource consumption and energy consumption, accompanied by pollution. Only by trying to extend the battery life and reduce the purchase of new batteries can we reduce environmental pollution and resource consumption.

Therefore, it is hoped that government departments can strengthen the industry research on the direct reuse of used batteries, formulate corresponding supporting policies, such as second-hand battery standards, and support leading technology enterprises to establish provincial waste battery recycling application center, so as to centrally purchase and dispose of waste batteries.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.