Power battery recycling industry currently encountered technical difficulties

For all the capital's favour, the power-battery recycling industry is in an awkward spot.

On the one hand, battery manufacturers, new energy vehicle manufacturers and third-party recycling institutions have frequently invested heavily in this year's layout, and brokerages, investment Banks and other institutions also see it as the next blue ocean.

On the other hand, the daily business news reporter recently interviewed a large number of industry insiders and found that the current two development directions of the industry, the cascade utilization and disassembly and recovery technology, are faced with the difficulty of breaking down the barriers. At the same time, in terms of commercialization, it is difficult to form scale effect and make profits in the short term.

Cascade utilization presents multiple challenges

China automotive technology research center predicts that by 2020, China's electric vehicle power battery scrap volume will reach 120,000 to 170,000 tons.

It is worth noting that these scrapped electric vehicle power batteries are not completely out of use, they can also be used in energy storage equipment, commercial residential energy storage station, electric vehicle charging energy storage station and telecommunications base station and other places according to different battery capacity. This way of extending the service life of power battery, namely cascade utilization, is also one of the two directions of power battery recycling industry.

Although as early as in July 2012, China issued the development plan for energy conservation and new energy automobile industry (2012-2020), which proposed to develop management methods for the recycling and utilization of power batteries and establish a cascade utilization and recycling management system. But nearly six years later, many in the industry are still not optimistic when it comes to scaling technology.

"New energy vehicles carrying power battery capacity attenuation to around 80%, have discarded, but into scrap tidal power battery now belong to the early in 2012, 2013, in the aspect of energy storage capacity itself belongs to the board at the time, even some new battery initial capacity can reach 100%, after attenuation to less than 80% of the following power, voltage may be unstable, so the arrangement in the use of the first challenge is stable performance problems." Yi wei lithium energy (300014,SZ) an executive told the daily business news.

Even if the performance stability problem can be solved, the proposition of the executive speaking out about echelon utilization is not realistic at the moment. "First of all, the scale of energy storage battery is relatively large, which usually requires 100 kilowatts or even megawatts, but the average battery capacity of a new energy vehicle is 30 KWH, which means the connection between the two needs to carry a battery pack, and there is a consistency problem."

In addition, the diversity of upstream battery manufacturers is another challenge that stands in the way of cascade utilization.

By the end of 2016, there were 150 power battery companies in China, according to data released by gai. "Different manufacturers also have different power battery materials, formulations, specifications and structures, resulting in more battery models and more scattered production, which brings difficulties to cascade utilization." Wang nan, director of the cascade utilization research office of avic lithium battery technology research institute.

It is understood that the cascade utilization process requires the detection, reclassification and regrouping of each scrapped battery, which is one of the reasons why a large number of battery categories have become a major challenge.

Dismantling and recycling face technical problems

The road of cascade utilization is not smooth. The investigation by a reporter from national business daily found that the recycling technology of power battery, another major direction of the recycling industry, is also hard to explain.

According to the research report issued by gaogong industry research institute, there are currently three processes for the disassembly and recovery of power batteries: dry process, wet process and biological recovery. The first two recovery processes have been relatively mature and can be applied in industrial applications, while the latter is still in the laboratory stage.

It is understood that no matter which process, the core technology is the disassembly of the cell. The cell takes up 36% of the cost of the power battery. Meanwhile, the anode material rich in nickel, cobalt and manganese takes up 45% of the cost. Through the recovery of raw materials, nickel, cobalt and manganese and other metallic elements can achieve a recovery rate of more than 95%, and the recovery rate of lithium is also more than 70%.

"Dismantling and recycling is of great significance to the construction of the closed loop of the industrial chain. Theoretically, the batteries can be recycled to produce nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium salts, and even further produce ternary anode materials and precursors, which can be directly used in the manufacturing of lithium battery cells. "Said a senior executive at a renewable resources recycling company in chongqing, who declined to be named.

In fact, some insiders in the interview believe that cascade utilization is not strictly "recycling". "cascade utilization is more of a category of secondary utilization, and the final decomposition and purification of recycling work has basically not achieved technical breakthrough. Said the person in charge.

It is understood that the core technology of the power battery recycling industry lies in how to extract the active ingredients or extract them with appropriate chemical solvents and make them into battery raw materials for recycling. The formula is also the trade secret of the power battery enterprise. As a new energy vehicle manufacturers and third-party recycling agencies, it is difficult to master.

At the same time, different kinds of power battery, there are different types of battery manufacturing and design different, different series-parallel group, serving and use different times, different application models and working condition, etc., it is also directly contributing to even the battery manufacturers, also is unable to grasp the market all secrets related to scrap battery recycling technology.

Economies of scale are hard to come by in the short term

For enterprises, profitability is the main factor for enterprises to make relevant strategic planning.

However, the national business daily reporter found in the survey, for most companies, the layout of the power battery recycling industry is "rainy day".

"Now the industry is still difficult to form a large-scale effect, before this year, the new energy vehicle battery has not entered the period of waste, available for recycling of the battery is limited, so it is difficult for enterprises to achieve mass recycling. Green, said us secretary to the President ouyang mingzhi.

As we have learned, the power battery category that USES extensively on market at present includes lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese acid battery, ternary battery to wait.

"From the perspective of economic benefits, it is difficult to make money by dismantling and recycling lithium iron phosphate and lithium manganese acid batteries. At present, our profitability is not as good as that of some small manufacturers." "For small manufacturers, the only way to disassemble and recover is to split the cell into positive and negative pieces, then break and sort them, and recover copper, aluminum and battery materials," said the chongqing renewable resources recycling company executive. "but the last step of precious metal refining process is basically not done, because only in this way can they guarantee profits."

It is known that the cell in the extraction of nickel, cobalt, manganese, rare earth elements and other valuable metals, recovery costs higher. According to the research report of China all-in-one electric vehicle association, the most widely used wet method to recover a ton of used lithium iron phosphate battery costs about 8,500 yuan, while the precious metal recycling material gains only about 8,100 yuan, with a loss of 400 yuan.

Ouyang mingzhi said, compared with lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese acid battery, in the existing process, the disassembly and recovery of ternary power battery can protect the profit.

According to zhidian automobile, the material extracted from a ton of three-yuan power batteries is worth about 37,000 yuan, and the recovery cost is more than 20,000 yuan, with a theoretical profit of 17,000 yuan. "As the price of upstream raw materials such as cobalt and nickel continues to rise, the value of extracted materials will increase further." The chongqing renewable resources company executive said.

However, the reality is that the three - yuan power battery waste has not yet come. According to the report data released by zhiyan consulting, the market share of ternary power batteries in the domestic market accounted for about 25% in 2015. Several industry insiders also said that the first centralized production date of sanyuan power battery production line will be around 2015.

But the future is full of imagination. According to statistics, in the first 10 months of 2017, three-yuan batteries accounted for more than 50%; Large lithium iron phosphate battery companies, including ningde times, byd and guoxuan high-tech, have started to increase the capacity of ternary lithium battery.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.