Old mobile phones for kitchen knives, scissors, stainless steel washbasins, all kinds of strange things, many people have heard these shouts from vendors in the streets and alleys.
So, why do these old mobile phones take them back?
Some people say that it is made into a refurbished mobile phone, which is actually just one of the uses of old mobile phones.
The old mobile phone can first be dismantled into pieces, dismantled and sold intact parts; secondly, the old mobile phone can extract a lot of good things.
According to rough statistics from industry insiders, a ton of discarded mobile phones can extract 150 grams of gold, 3 kilograms of silver and 100 kilograms of copper.
So many people think that the current electric vehicle is so hot, the resulting waste battery will be more and more, the current mainstream lithium batteries are electrolyte, so how to deal with these batteries?
Some people say that throwing in the sea is a very local psychology.
In fact, just like mobile phones, power batteries can also be turned into treasures.
If nothing else, only the nickel, cobalt, and manganese cathode materials of ternary lithium batteries are currently scarce resources in the world, and this thing is not Japan's nuclear wastewater, and it is a tyrannical thing to throw into the sea.
So, how do these waste batteries turn waste into treasure?
Echelon utilization
In fact, the relevant state departments have long made arrangements for this.
In August 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration of Market Regulation jointly issued the "Administrative Measures for the Cascade Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", which pointed out the bright way for the "turning waste into treasure" of waste power batteries, and small partners who want to start a business can start now.
What is ladder utilization?
Here we must first figure out a concept, what is the concept of "scrapping" of power batteries.
The so-called scrapping, in fact, refers to the decline in internal chemical activity, which cannot meet the normal needs of electric vehicles.
But the electric car is a high-energy thing, which is not to say that it can't be used, and it can't be used anywhere else.
In some low-energy-consuming areas, batteries that are not used by electric vehicles can still play a huge role.
For example, it can be used as an energy storage system for some renewable energy power stations, and can also be used to reserve power for communication base stations, which are places that absolutely cannot be cut off, but the power battery of the electric vehicle level is too wasteful, and the scrap battery is just useful.
Here's a sneak peek: Huawei.
Huawei has been the leader of global UPS power supply since 2014, UPS power supply, is an uninterruptible power supply with energy storage device, mainly used to power those communication base stations and other equipment with high power stability requirements.
In addition, the power batteries we usually see for electric vehicles exist in the form of battery packs or battery packs, which can first be disassembled into battery modules to serve some places that need it; then they can also be disassembled into battery cells and then use a wave, which is called ladder utilization.
You know, there are too many equipment and commodities that need electricity, but the requirements for electric vehicles are too high, so the batteries that still have huge use value will be called "scrap batteries".
Material recycling
Of course, all batteries will eventually decay, even the electrons in children's toys will decay, and the power battery will become unusable after the cascade utilization, and the battery at this time can be called a scrap battery.
However, even this kind of scrap battery can still be turned into treasure.
Extracting precious metals from certain commodities is a very common operation.
Old mobile phones can be refined, and power batteries can of course.
Why is the cost of power batteries, especially ternary lithium batteries, high at present?
This is first and foremost because their cathode materials are too expensive. Nickel, cobalt and manganese are all precious metals with relatively few reserves on the earth.
Especially cobalt, in recent years, the sales of electric vehicles have exploded, and the demand for metal cobalt has risen sharply.
It should be noted that 70% of the world's cobalt is currently from the Congo, which has become one of the most scarce strategic resources in the world.
The refining and recycling of precious metals such as cobalt in battery waste can not only achieve waste into treasure, but also achieve the purpose of environmental protection.
Conclusion: The power battery will pollute the environment after scrapping, which is one of the commonly used "arguments" of electric vehicle opponents, in fact, this is a manifestation of lack of common sense. Even the end-of-life warm water bottle gall can be refined into silver, who is willing to throw these treasures away? Besides, end-of-life batteries can also be used in cascades, so it is better to meet the new era of electrification with confidence.