Difficulties facing the power battery industry - recycling industrialization

It’s a good idea to take precautions in the current power battery recycling market. In the next five years, the large-scale decommissioning of power batteries will be the peak of power battery recycling. How to industrialize the recycling of power batteries is also a difficult point in the industry.

Power lithium battery recycling cannot be limited to a certain enterprise. It must face the entire industry, and promote the recycling work together with upstream and downstream enterprises, at the same time we must consider the mechanism of power battery recycling. Yanxian Sun, chairman of Zhejiang Chaowei Chuangyuan Industrial Co., Ltd., delivered a speech at the 4th China Recycling Resources Recycling Industry Conference in 2017. Since its promotion in 2009, China's electric vehicles have been developed for seven years. With the strong support of the state, the explosion of new energy vehicles has increased in recent years. According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China reached 2016. 507,000, this year's market sales are expected to be around 800,000.

The service life of power batteries is generally 5-8 years, which means that China's power batteries will enter a large-scale scrapping period starting this year and next. By 2020, the cumulative scrap of China's automotive power batteries is expected to reach 200,000 tons. Scale, and with the development of new energy vehicles and the passage of time, the pressure of power recovery will become greater and greater. Hongbin Cao, a researcher at the Institute of Process Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that electric vehicle batteries may be scrapped after three to five years of use. After the vehicle battery is decommissioned, if it is not necessary to recycle and dispose of it, it will not only waste resources but also pollute the environment. The process of reusing power batteries is generally to invalidate, disassemble, detect, and screen used batteries, and then re-use them. However, the power battery of the new energy vehicle is relatively dangerous due to its large volume and high energy density. Since the power battery involves heavy metals, electrolytes, and environmental issues, every aspect of the power battery recycling is critical.

In addition, because the battery received by the recycling company includes various forms, sizes, specifications, and packaging forms, it is difficult to achieve large-scale mass disassembly and disassembly when the disassembly involves a variety of packaging fixtures the status quo of large-scale implementation. Haijun Yu, general manager of Hunan Bangpu Waste Automobile Recycling Co., Ltd. said. Although power battery recycling is difficult, the country has already introduced some support policies and layout pilot work. More and more companies have begun to set up the recycling of power batteries. In addition to Shenzhen GEM, Ganfeng Lithium and other professional power battery recycling companies, including BYD, Waterma, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Ningde Era, AVIC Lithium, BAK and other power battery companies, are in the field of power battery recycling The market layout was launched. Urgently regulated power battery recycling system in the first phase of new energy vehicle promotion in 2008~2012, new energy vehicles sold less than 30,000 vehicles, and about 80% were buses. Usually, new energy vehicles will need to face the problem of replacing batteries in about 5 years. For high-frequency vehicles such as taxis and buses, the demand for power exchange may be shortened to three years. The market for new energy vehicles in China has been concentrated in 2015, so the large-scale wave of electricity exchange is expected to wait until after 2018. However, even if the power battery has not been involved in the large-scale post-decommissioning problem, the power battery ladder recycling related system must be completed in advance. Huajun Sun, deputy director of BYD Battery Branch, said. Because once the power battery market enters the period of decommissioning, these batteries will face a situation of displacement. There are still many problems in the current power battery recycling in China.

First, there is no mandatory legal policy. Although the government has already promulgated some policies and regulations, the regulations that actually implement the responsibilities and clarify the penalties are not. Second, the industry is scattered. There are many types of battery products, many manufacturers, many car companies, and scattered recycling companies. These problems are not conducive to the centralized recycling of power batteries. Third, the channels are difficult and the market is not mature. Although the problem of power battery recycling is an urgent task, but because China's power battery has begun to enter the peak of recycling, so the previous market is not mature, SME supply channels become a problem.

In addition, cost and profitability are undoubtedly the main obstacles to battery recycling. The high cost of recycling process and low recycling value make many companies and capitals prohibitive, and the price of cathode materials such as anode, lithium manganate and lithium iron phosphate is low. Without the economic driving force of recycling, it is difficult to guarantee the recovery rate of power batteries and resources and environmental protection. Tongzhu Zhang, senior engineer of the Automotive Standardization Research Institute of China Automotive Technology and Research Center, said. He believes that the formation of scale effect is an important breakthrough point for the current power battery recycling. It is urgent to establish a power battery recycling system and industry alliance. For the industry, it is conducive to the formation of economies of scale, more concentrated and effective recycling. It’s conducive to the overall development of the industry as well as resources and environmental protection. For the battery and the vehicle enterprise, it can solve the problem of recycling the battery itself, and does not need to establish an additional recycling mechanism to increase the operating cost of the enterprise.

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