What is the current status of recycling and recycling of used lithium batteries in China?

What is the current status of recycling and recycling of used lithium batteries in China? The vigorous development of new energy vehicles, as well as the promotion of policies and markets, have made China the world's leading producer and consumer of lithium-ion batteries. A large number of lithium-ion batteries have entered the market, and the recycling and reuse of used lithium-ion batteries has become a major industry challenge.

As the use time increases, the performance of lithium battery capacity, discharge efficiency and safety will be significantly reduced. For lithium batteries that are no longer sufficient for current applications, recycling can effectively leverage its “residual value”.

Lithium recovery is social responsibility

Lithium batteries are environmentally friendly and harmless disposal meets the requirements of sustainable development. Therefore, the government implements the “Extension of Producer Responsibility System”, requiring producers to be responsible for battery recycling, ensuring that the source of the battery is controllable and clear, so as to ease Recycling and dismantling the workload; at the same time, it advocates the use of battery packs for ladder utilization, reducing the difficulty of recycling and improving the efficiency of the industry.

Lithium recovery is an economical choice

The battery core accounts for 36% of the cost of the power battery. If the gross profit is deducted, the battery core ratio is as high as 49%; in the consumer battery, the cost of the battery core is higher. In the battery, the cost of the positive electrode material rich in metal elements such as nickel, cobalt and manganese accounts for 45%. Through the recovery of raw materials, metal elements such as nickel, cobalt and manganese can achieve a recovery rate of more than 95%, while the recovery rate of lithium elements is also above 70%, and the economic benefits are remarkable.

For lithium batteries that are no longer able to meet the current application requirements, recycling can effectively exert its "residual value": for lithium cobalt oxide and ternary material lithium batteries used in consumer scenes, lithium, cobalt and other metal elements and shells can be recovered. For power batteries with more complicated structures and components, there are two modes of ladder utilization and material recovery: (1) the capacity of the power battery that can not meet the requirements of new energy vehicles, but the cycle life is longer, can be used by the ladder. Used in the field of energy storage; (2) For batteries with a significant decrease in cycle life, renewable resources such as metal oxides, organic electrolytes, and plastic casings can be extracted.

Lithium battery recycling and reuse

At present, China's waste lithium battery recycling system is still not perfect, and the recycling technology and business model have not yet reached the mature standard. At present, the use of technology is immature, the acquisition network is imperfect, management measures are not perfect, support policy is not in place and other issues are still plaguing China's lithium battery recycling industry, business model and profit model yet to be explored.

The system of echelon utilization is not perfect, and it is still the biggest problem facing the old battery recycling field. To what extent the battery capacity can be used to enter the next step, to what extent can not be used for the use of the ladder and need to enter the recycling process, there is no clear standard.

At present, the early power batteries that can be used in the cascade utilization have only a few high-quality lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the remaining batteries, including the ternary batteries, have no use value. After using for a period of time, the ternary battery is difficult to ensure the uniformity of the electrochemical properties of the internal materials of the battery, so there is a safety risk for the use of the ladder. If the battery pack is disassembled, it will greatly increase the cost, and it is valuable only if the battery pack is not disassembled and applied directly.

Today, most electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet PC, wearables equipment, and electric vehicles use recyclable lithium-ion batteries. These lithium batteries last two to three years, and their function and efficiency are degraded, even at the end of their lives. Nowadays, with the rapid development of science and technology, there are many electronic devices, and the lithium battery recycling and recycling market is vast, and the resources recycling benefits are many. In the future, with the improvement of the market and policies, the recycling rate of lithium batteries will be higher.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.