With the major national policies are helping the development of new energy vehicles, many subsidy policies have been given, accelerating the growth of electric vehicles in China, but the popularity of new energy vehicles, followed by the problem of decommissioned battery recycling. In theory, the power battery life of new energy vehicles is generally 8 years or the corresponding mileage is 120,000 kilometers. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, about 17,600 new energy vehicles were sold in China in 2013 and about 74,800 in 2014. According to the year, by 2022, about 100,000 new energy vehicle power batteries have reached the retirement period.
A large number of power batteries are decommissioned, the first thing to consider is the environmental pressure, because the heavy metals in the battery, electrolyte solutes, organic solvents, etc. are polluting. How to avoid the "explosive growth" of new energy vehicles instead brings "explosive pollution" is very alarming. After all, there is no need to say more about the appalling environmental consequences of putting waste batteries directly into landfills. So, let's take a look at how foreign industry experts and auto companies deal with these batteries.
The so-called battery decommissioning does not mean that the power battery has been completely scrapped, in fact, many of the materials in it can be recycled. There are two paths for foreign power battery recycling, one of which is to extract raw materials, such as cobalt, nickel and other expensive metal materials. As we all know, power batteries rely on several raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, which are not very rich in China, but cobalt is a key issue for the sustainability of batteries and the future of electric vehicles. You know, most of the cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so if the cobalt of the end-of-life battery can be extracted, it is to reduce the dependence on mining cobalt.
However, some researchers pointed out that it is not simple to extract the metal in the scrap battery. At present, foreign countries mainly rely on two technologies, namely pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. More commonly, pyrometallurgy, where recyclers mechanically shred batteries and then incinerate them, leaving behind a pile of charred plastic, metal and glue, which are then sorted sexually. But be aware that most car batteries are usually stuck together by solid glue and difficult to separate. This creates a recycling hurdle, with the possibility that battery manufacturers will pay less directly for newly mined metal than they would for recycled materials.
Compared with the "extraction of metal materials", cascade recycling currently has many cases abroad, such as using it as a power reserve for household, industrial and energy power generation. Although the battery capacity is no longer suitable for driving cars after attenuation to 80%, it still has a good "effect" in the face of home and industrial power storage. As in 2021, Volvo announced the potential of a second life application of car scrap batteries, one of which is to cooperate with BatteryLoop to use Volvo electric vehicle batteries for solar storage systems.
Coincidentally, in addition to Volvo, Nissan has used secondary batteries from the Leaf for static energy storage in industrial and domestic facilities and has provided off-the-shelf home or commercial energy storage devices. In addition, BMW also announced that it will partner with energy company Off Grid Energy to create sustainable secondary utilization solutions for batteries from end-of-life BMW and MINI electric and hybrid models, while Honda also announced plans for its used hybrid and electric vehicle batteries.
Japan attaches great importance to the recycling of power batteries, precautions, as early as the promotion of electric vehicles, has considered the cascade utilization of power batteries. Among them, Nissan Motor established a joint venture with Sumitomo Group to establish 4REnergy Energy before the leaf was listed. The company is engaged in the reuse of waste batteries for electric vehicles, and flexibly uses batteries with long life and high energy density in the car for different purposes. In addition, the 4R Energy joint venture has developed household and commercial energy storage products with nominal power of 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 kW, respectively.
The United States has a comprehensive study on the cascade utilization of power batteries, and they have conducted systematic research on the economic benefits, technical and commercial feasibility analysis of power batteries, and the attempts of cascade utilization. Through the evaluation of the overall value of the battery, the optimal design and application scheme are proposed, as well as the evaluation method of the optimal life value of the power lithium battery, including the process of battery sorting, testing, evaluation and verification. Beginning in 2011, GM and ABB began working together to experiment with how to use The Chevrolet Volt Volta's battery packs to harvest electrical energy, feed it back into the grid, and ultimately power the home and commercial sectors.
In the final analysis, whether it is the extraction of expensive metals or cascade utilization, it is absolutely not sloppy to deal with the problem of waste electric vehicle batteries. Judging from the current progress of these waste batteries in foreign countries, there may be more different recycling plans in the next 5-10 years.
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