The most comprehensive analysis: the lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recycling

Guide: The use and recycling of lithium batteries is mainly based on environmental protection, resource conservation, and profitability.

Lithium battery arrangement in use and recycling mainly based on environmental protection, resource saving, profitable three aspects:

Environmental protection: the lithium battery cathode material containing nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and other heavy metals, the heavy metal elements can cause pollution to the environment, water, etc; The inside of the anode materials of carbon materials, graphite, etc. will cause dust pollution; In addition, the electrolyte of lithium batteries contain toxic chemicals, also can cause fluorine pollution.

Resource savings: large amounts of metal elements contained in the lithium battery, nickel, graphite and other more in our country, but the metal elements such as cobalt is scarce in our country; Lithium absolute content of many Chinese, but difficult exploitation is large, are generally distributed in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and other conditions of mine hard; Salt lake in lithium magnesium ions content is higher, the difficulty of extracting lithium is very big also.

Profitable: do the arrangement in use and resource recovery of lithium-ion batteries still can form commercial, because a large number of turns into electric automobile industry in recent years, lithium battery demand increase, lead to upstream of the precious metal material price is very high, cobalt metal price is 600000 / ton, nickel 100000 / ton, 170000 / tons of lithium carbonate, lithium metal, 900000 / ton.

Market outlet

1, policy support,

At the earliest in 2012, the “Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan” issued by the State Council mentioned “the development of power battery recycling management methods”;.

In 2014 issued by the general office of the state council "about to speed up the" instructional advice on the popularization and application of the new energy vehicles, power battery recycling policy;

In 2015 the ministry of finance, ministry of science and technology, ministry of industry, the national development and reform commission on the application of new energy vehicles in 2016-2020 financial support policy notice mentioned in the "to make electric cars and power battery enterprises undertake the body of the waste battery recycling".

In 2016, the national development and reform commission, ministry of industry and environmental protection bureau, the ministry of commerce and general administration of quality supervision, inspection and the corresponding issued a series of policies, so far, specifically for the lithium battery recycling policy has a total of more than 20.

In March 2018, the seven ministries jointly issued the latest on the new energy vehicle power battery recycling pilot work of the notice.

These policies can induce the following four:

National ministries claim power battery to cascade utilization, resource recycling again;

Producer responsibility to implement, namely "who production, who is responsible for";

Build power battery recycling system, to carry out some pilot projects, to establish recycling network and information supervision;

Continuously improve industry norms, the state enterprise qualification requirements gradually clear.

2, the size of the market

Lithium battery as a whole can be divided into three categories:

Consumer batteries: batteries used in consumer electronics such as mobile phones, IPADs, notebook computers, etc., mainly lithium cobalt oxide batteries;

Power battery: used in new energy vehicles, passenger cars are mainly ternary batteries, commercial vehicles are mainly lithium iron phosphate batteries;

Energy storage battery: used in charging stations, thermal power stations, commercial energy storage, etc., mainly using lithium iron phosphate batteries.

What is arrangement in use? For example, such as battery to use on the new energy vehicles, battery charge is 100% of the energy, when the battery use after a period of time, power attenuation, when power attenuation to 80% will not be able to use in the car, it's the first stage of use. Damping down from the car battery, power from 80% to 80% range can do arrangement in use, such as used in low-speed vehicles, electric tricycle, electric motorcycle, charging station energy storage, thermal cut peak valley, photovoltaic, etc. A battery with a charge of less than 20% can be considered to have completed its life cycle and can be recycled at this time. Thus the whole according to the capacity of the battery is divided into three parts: automotive, arrangement in use, scrap recycling.

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

In 2017, the production and sales volume of China's new energy vehicles is around 800,000 units, and the total number of new energy vehicles in the world is 1.3 million. It is estimated that by 2020, China's new energy vehicles will reach 3 million, and the world will reach 5 million. According to the sales of new energy vehicles, the demand for lithium batteries will reach 250GWh by 2020, and the attenuation of these batteries needs to be gradually recycled.

According to the demand for new energy vehicle power batteries in recent years, when the passenger car battery capacity is from 100% to 80%, the life expectancy is about 5 years, and the commercial vehicle is about 3 years. The large-scale use of new energy vehicles in China in 2014, Based on this calculation, the power battery will enter a large-scale decommissioning stage by 2018. In other words, the real start of lithium battery recycling in 2018 will usher in a new enthusiasm, the next growth point. According to the calculation of high-tech lithium battery and major brokers, it is estimated that 11GWh of batteries will be decommissioned in 2018, corresponding to a market space of about 6 billion; in 2020, the market space will be 15 billion, and in 2023, it will reach 40 billion, from 2018 to 2018. In 2023, the compound annual growth rate will reach 50%. It can be said that the recycling of lithium batteries will become the next market entrant.

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

According to the statistics of high-tech lithium batteries, the recovery of lithium batteries in 2017 is 80,000 tons, and the market scale is about 3 to 4 billion. Among these 80,000 tons, the battery dismantling accounted for 95%, and there was no use of the ladder. At present, the reasons for the disadvantages of the market use of the ladder are mainly as follows:

A few years ago the battery technology security problems stand out;

Less scrap, standardization degree is not high, pilot use of matching is difficult;

Energy storage market large-scale release yet.

Technical route

1, technical standards

In our country in the new energy vehicles conditions of comprehensive utilization of waste power battery industry standard requirements: in the wet smelting condition, nickel and cobalt comprehensive recycling utilization rate is not lower than 98% of manganese, smelting method of recycling utilization of no less than 97%.Is leading to the current domestic enterprises has been basically achieved, such as the state's standards.

2, the lithium iron phosphate,

The power battery is mainly divided into lithium iron phosphate, used in commercial vehicles, and ternary batteries, which are used in passenger cars. In comparison, lithium iron phosphate is more suitable for the use of the ladder. The performance of these two batteries is not the same, the lithium iron phosphate has a longer cycle life, and the power is reduced from 100% to 80% and the life can reach 2000-6000 times.

Ningde era made the above calculation, after retirement lithium iron phosphate power battery can be used as energy storage battery for at least five years. If direct scrap lithium iron phosphate, dismantling, income is limited, its composition is iron worthless, lithium content is very little, 1 ton of the lithium iron phosphate recycling economic returns at around 10000, if used as a pilot use earnings in 30000-40000 or so, so in these two ways, suit to pilot using lithium iron phosphate.

3, arrangement in use

Arrangement in use process can be divided into three steps: first filtered for recycling batteries, and battery series parallel, the management of the charge and discharge of the third step, outside to join the BMS, design capacity and power matching. General battery capacity and power matching ratio of 8:1, discharge rate at 0.125 C.

The key technology of pilot use lies in two:

Discrete integration technology: different battery pack technology is different, after disassembly, it is necessary to integrate different single cells according to the performance and life of the battery module;

Full life cycle traceability technology: Estimated by SOC, SOH, and SOP technical indicators provided by BMS.

4, resource recycling

The life of lithium iron phosphate is relatively long, and the cycle life of ternary battery is about 800-2000 times, which is relatively short; the safety of ternary battery is not as good as that of iron-lithium battery, and the ignition point is relatively low, which is not suitable for energy storage power station, communication base stations and other areas with complex environments.

In addition the ternary batteries contain nickel cobalt manganese price is quite high, even directly and dismantling, income is very considerable. So, by contrast, the ternary battery is more suitable for dismantling. Ternary battery dismantling prices in 40000-50000 Yuan/ton, if you take down the dismantling of nickel cobalt manganese precursors of ternary material to do again, the price is higher. Ningde era, for example, the unit price is in 80000 Yuan/ton.

Resource recycling in two stages: preprocessing, recycle the battery first discharge, remove the outer packing, manual dismantling isolated from batteries; and then recovery.

Recycling technology can be divided into three categories:

Dry (physical):

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

Mechanical separation method: mechanical means crushing screening, sorting directly

High temperature pyrolysis method: high temperature burning, forming evaporation condensation of steam

Dry hot fix: after dry again for recycled coarse product processing as materials

Wet chemical method:

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

Hydrometallurgy: dissolve separation with chemical reagents leaching

Chemical extraction, separation reagent

Ion exchange: with ion exchange

Biological recovery technology:

Mainly is to use microbial leaching, now also is difficult, technical problems remain to be the breakthrough.

At present, in the industry, the ternary battery is generally used in the wet method, and the lithium iron phosphate is used in the dry method, which is also a recommended method. In comparison, the cost of the wet process is relatively high, but the purity of the recovered materials is relatively high, each having its own advantages and disadvantages.

Operation mode

The producer responsibility, the United States: 1 + consumer deposit system

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

Tesla, for example, in 2015 Tesla issued POWERWALL is used for energy storage market, doing the pilot use of lithium-ion batteries.

2, Germany: mainly responsible producers

Bosch, for example, in 2015 began to do the battery arrangement in use of recycling. Recovery is expected to more than 50% by 2018.

3, Japan: legislative + subsidies to battery production enterprises

Japan has enacted legislation at the national level to subsidize the recycling of battery manufacturers. Take Toyota as an example. Toyota is the global leader in hybrid vehicles. In 1998, it began to recycle used batteries. There are three main steps for recycling: first establish a recycling network, then conduct a detailed evaluation of the recovered batteries, choose whether to repair or use the ladder. Disassemble and chemically treat batteries that completely lose their reuse value. In 2015, Toyota used the used batteries of the Camry Hybrid for energy storage in Yellowstone National Park. The battery management system was redesigned. 208 Camry batteries can store 85KWh of electricity, which doubles the service life of the battery.

4, lead-acid battery recycling

China lead-acid battery production reached 4 million tons in 2016, the value of lead content in 40 billion, in terms of technology, China lead-acid battery recovery rate can reach 98%, but the actual rate of only 30%, the main problem is that never build a large-scale network.

Recycling subject should implement an extension of the producer responsibility system, namely, automobile production enterprises, battery into production enterprises, the third party as the main body of recycling resources recycling enterprises, including auto production enterprises is the key.

In the business model, the establishment of a recycling network and the specialization of the combination of the two have begun to take shape. The future industry competition logic also focuses on these two points:

Establish a nationwide recycling network to generate economies of scale and dilute costs;;

Break through the technical threshold.

Lithium battery arrangement in use and resource recovery of the most comprehensive analysis

So far, 2017 pilot using battery is very little in our country, the main problem is the economy. According to the league of battery, according to our country's energy storage is given priority to with pumped storage, coal is given priority to with lead carbon batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries have been slow to become a pilot with the main body of the main reason is the cost, can be seen above, lead, carbon batteries and pumped storage cost at about 0.4 Yuan/kWh, lithium battery in 0.7 Yuan/KWH. To hot up to power battery Liyang project as an example, the calculation results show that static storage project investment capital is recovered in 6 years or so, if you want to generate income you will need to run full 10 years, the after-tax return in 10%.Although arrangement in use at present stage of economy is not obvious, but as the battery costs down, the future arrangement in use of the market will gradually broke out.

Investment in mergers and acquisitions

1, China tower

The company is a large-scale communication infrastructure comprehensive service enterprise jointly established by China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom. It is mainly engaged in the construction, maintenance and operation of base station supporting facilities and indoor distribution systems such as communication towers. At the beginning of January this year, the company With 17 companies including Chongqing Changan, BYD, Yinlong New Energy, Waterma, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Thornton New Energy, they have jointly recovered lithium iron phosphate. At present, more than 3,000 base stations have been established in 12 provinces and cities across the country..

2, Saic Ningde

SAIC is the leader in the automotive industry. Ningde era is the leader in the power battery industry. The two leading companies have joined hands to recycle the power battery. In March 2018, they signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation.

Ningde era has completed the acquisition of Bangpu in 2013. At present, the lithium battery recycling business segment has become one of the three core businesses. In 2017, the revenue from the recycling business segment reached 2.5 billion, the unit price was 80,000 yuan/ton, and the gross profit margin reached 27. %, the business accounted for 13%..

3, Investment mergers and acquisitions

From the industry point of view, as early as 2013, Ningde era has acquired Bangpu; in 2017, Xiamen Tungsten acquired Zhangzhou Haopeng; the case of mergers and acquisitions in 2018 is more.

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