Where should we go with decommissioned batteries?

In recent years, under the impetus of relevant national policies, China's new energy car industry has ushered in explosive growth and has become the world's largest new energy car market. However, as a large number of new energy vehicles are put on the market, the amount of power batteries scrapped will also increase dramatically, triggering new industry thinking: where should retired batteries go?

China's new energy vehicle market has grown rapidly since 2012. By 2016, the annual output has exceeded 500,000 vehicles, and sales in 2017 are expected to exceed 700,000 vehicles. According to the retirement time of new energy vehicle power batteries from 5 to 8 years, industry research institutions predict that the amount of scrap will reach 248,000 tons by 2020, while the actual dismantling and recycling in 2016 will be less than 10,000 tons. From an economic point of view, the recycling market created by the recycling of metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, iron and aluminum in used power lithium batteries will exceed 5.3 billion yuan in 2018, exceed 10 billion yuan in 2020, and will be used in 2023. The lithium battery market will reach 25 billion yuan.

Due to the improper treatment of materials and electrolytes in power batteries, the environment will be polluted greatly. Meanwhile, China must reduce its heavy external dependence on cobalt and other scarce metals through recycling and utilization. Therefore, power battery recycling will become the key to the development of new energy vehicles in China. In anticipation of the upcoming "scrapping tide" of batteries, the National Engineering Research Center for Advanced energy storage Materials(hereinafter referred to as the National Engineering Center) used its own recycling test platform from 2013 to 2017 to adopt two options: hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical. The data needed for industrialization were obtained through trial and test in many batches, and the technical and economic analysis was carried out.

The National Engineering Center was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission and was jointly established by Ke Liyuan and Zhongnan University, Jinchuan Group, and Ruixiang New Materials. The research team was led by Dr. Zhongfaping, bringing together 2 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 3 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. There are 2 professors, and nearly 20 national experts with outstanding contributions. It is the only national engineering center in the field of advanced energy storage technology and key energy storage materials in China.

The hydrometallurgical scheme makes the used batteries "best use" through the process of dismantling, leaching and extraction.

Starting with battery dismantling equipment, the National Engineering Center has focused on multiple advantages to develop highly efficient and safe automatic battery dismantling equipment(battery sheller, Crusher, separator) and applied for four patents for the invention of dismantling equipment. He also participated in the drafting of the colored row label "Technical specification for scrap battery fragmentation separation and recovery."

After disassembly equipment treatment, circular batteries can be dismantled into steel shell, iron material, active substance powder, nickel material, diaphragm five types of materials, Square batteries can be dismantled into iron material, active substance powder, nickel material, diaphragm, plastic shell five types of materials. Among them, steel shells and iron materials can be sold directly, and active substances such as powder and nickel materials are leached and extracted raw materials. In terms of efficiency, the capacity of dismantling equipment is 300kg/h. During the dismantling process, the comprehensive recovery rate of nickel, cobalt, and rare earth exceeds 99.7 %, and greatly saves the recovery cost.

In leaching-extraction technology, the National Engineering Center has completed the leaching-extraction pilot line, and has applied for six patents for wet process inventions. Nickel, cobalt and rare earth have been further recycled by the leaching-extraction line process of the electric core materials such as nickel material, active material powder and diaphragm(plastic) obtained after dismantling.

National engineering center: make retired batteries "home accessible"

The recycling quality is trustworthy. After the test scale verification of the 50Kg/batch of the pilot line, the nickel sulfate recovered by wet method meets the national standard GBT/26524 -2011-II product requirements and domestic benchmark enterprise requirements; Cobalt chloride meets the national standard GB/T26525-2011 first-class requirements; Rare earth salt meets the standards of steel and steel rare earth enterprises and can be sold directly.

The pyrometallurgical programme is a useful complement to the hydrometallurgical programme.

The National Engineering Center has determined the pyrometallurgical process plan for extruding broken shells and matte smelting by exploring the conditions of pretreatment methods, low ice nickel ratio of batteries, melting temperature, and insulation time, and has completed the comprehensive recovery rate of nickel and cobalt metals greater than 97 %. And applied for four patents for the invention of the fire process. After the verification of the 80KVA electric arc furnace of Jinchuan Nickel Cobalt Research Institute, the new low-nickel helium produced by the treatment of low-nickel sulfur and waste nickel-metal hydride batteries can be used as a raw material for the fabrication of matte, and high-cobalt nickel can be produced by the blowing process. The process can be processed into nickel products and cobalt products.

Plimonium blowing

The sharp rise in battery scrap is not "doomsday", but more like an opportunity. Power battery recycling industry as a new energy market, a "hot spot", is bound to cause new market competition. The National Engineering Center will continue to focus on technological breakthroughs, continue to improve the power battery recycling system, so that retired batteries "have a home", while seizing the "commanding heights" in the battery recycling field, while making more due contributions to China's environmental protection.

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