Yangtze River Daily-Yangtze River Net reporter Zhao Mengmeng, Gao Ximing, Zhou Tingyi
The power battery is known as the "heart of new energy vehicles", and its endurance will be greatly reduced after running to a certain mileage. With the explosive growth of the new energy vehicle industry, the recycling of power batteries has also become the focus of public attention.
As an important part of the new energy battery industry, many enterprises have laid out the battery recycling market in the Wuhan metropolitan area.
Put the "retired" batteries into the energy storage cabinet for recycling
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stipulates that from 2016, passenger car manufacturers will provide 8-year or 120,000 km warranty for core components such as batteries and motors. In 2024, the mainland ushered in the first batch of power batteries "out of insurance".
Workers at Wuhan Power Recycling Company are assembling battery modules. Photo by reporter Lu Shiwen
The Society of Automotive Engineers of China predicts that in 2030, the retired power batteries in mainland China will reach 3.5 million tons, and the market size of power battery recycling is expected to reach 140.6 billion yuan.
"In the face of the 100 billion-level blue ocean market, the formation of a stable power battery recycling channel is an important factor affecting enterprises to take the lead in 'eating' dividends. Wuhan Power Battery Recycling Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wuhan Power Regeneration Company) deputy general manager Bie Chuanyu said in an interview with reporters that the company has established a directional recycling cooperative relationship with more than 750 domestic and foreign OEMs and battery factories and other industrial chain enterprises, and has arranged 140 recycling outlets across the country, and developed a "green recycling" applet, the public can choose to go to the outlets or wait for the door-to-door recycling method.
In addition to materials and third-party companies, car companies have also begun to actively deploy the power battery recycling industry.
Power batteries to be disposed of after dismantling. Photo by reporter Zhao Mengmeng
In the production workshop of Dongfeng Hongtai Circular Economy Industrial Park, a large number of new energy scrapped vehicles are being dismantled.
According to the relevant person in charge of Dongfeng Hongtai Resource Recycling Company, compared with the third-party recycling and processing institutions, the company has a more comprehensive and accurate grasp of information such as power battery models, "We also hope to cooperate with vehicle manufacturers, battery factories, and battery operation and maintenance providers, and deeply coordinate multiple resources with diversified cooperation models to jointly build a closed loop of battery life cycle cooperation." ”
How to make use of recycled power batteries? Cascade utilization and recycling are the two mainstream ways of "turning waste into treasure".
According to industry insiders, cascade utilization is to disassemble and reorganize retired power batteries with better performance, and then downgrade them to scenarios with low power demand, such as low-speed vehicles, engineering vehicles, energy storage cabinets, solar street lights, etc.
Walking into GEM's Wuhan Park, the new energy storage cabinet that has just been launched is charging new energy vehicles. It is reported that each energy storage cabinet is composed of 5 retired power battery modules, which can provide more than 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per cycle and can be used continuously for 8 to 10 years.
The energy storage cabinet is the core equipment of the integrated demonstration project of battery and photovoltaic storage and charging of Wuhan Power Regeneration Company. Courtesy of the company
New energy vehicles are using the electricity provided by energy storage cabinets to replenish energy. Photo by reporter Lu Shiwen
In addition, the East Lake sightseeing bus has been installed with the power battery of GEM's echelon utilization, and tourists can enjoy the scenery of Wuhan. Cascade utilization batteries can also be used in portable mobile power supplies and home energy storage systems, penetrating into all aspects of life.
Power batteries with serious attenuation will also play a role in recycling and utilization. Recycling involves the dismantling, crushing, sorting, material repair or smelting of batteries to extract high-value metals such as lithium and nickel and put them into the battery production line for reuse.
"We are the world's first enterprise in the large-scale mass production of lithium battery short-process dry recycling and regeneration process. At present, 4 engineering production lines of 10,000 tons have been built. Li Shouding, executive deputy general manager of Wuhan Ruikemei New Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Ruikemei), introduced.
Ruikemei production workshop. Courtesy of the company
Dry recycling technology is to intelligently disassemble the waste power battery to obtain components such as positive electrode piece, negative electrode piece, separator and battery shell, and then carry out a series of means such as precise separation and impurity removal control of the electrode piece to obtain valuable products, and then carry out the next step of material recycling process. For example, the lithium iron phosphate powder extracted from the core of the power battery can be used to manufacture new power batteries after performance repair, and does not need to go through heavy pollution and heavy energy consumption processes such as acid and alkali treatment and material resynthesis.
"The dry recycling process is simple, does not consume additional chemicals, is the most environmentally friendly, and is suitable for large-scale promotion, especially in the future, where environmental protection requirements are becoming more and more stringent, and dry recycling is almost the best choice. Li Shouding said.
The integration of production, education, research and application promotes enterprise technological innovation
"Recycling technology directly affects the recycling rate of power batteries and is a key factor in determining the profitability of power batteries. Li Shouding, executive deputy general manager of Ruikemei, recalled that from a small technical team of 10 people to a large technical team of more than 100 people, the company has always put R&D and innovation in the first place of the company's development, and constantly improved technology to build core competitiveness.
Li Shouding believes that the research and development process of product technology is a reciprocating cycle of discovering problems, solving problems, discovering new problems, and then solving problems. For example, the compatibility of the initial technical route, the process stability and capacity matching after the construction of the factory, and the inconsistency of raw materials and product performance stability later.
In order to maximize the service life of the battery and optimize the management of the battery in the cascade utilization and material regeneration stage after retirement, Wuhan Weineng Battery Assets Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wuhan Weineng) has established a lithium hydrolysis research institute, focusing on the research of efficient management and generalization technology of the whole life cycle of power batteries.
Lithium Hydrolysis Research Institute. Courtesy of the company
According to reports, the Lithium Hydrolysis Research Institute is the first comprehensive research institution in China based on the research and development of power battery application technology, improving the overall value of the whole battery cycle, and realizing the landing of research results. In addition to the self-built lithium hydrolysis research institute, Wuhan Weineng has also developed its own "lithium hydrolysis" battery operation service management platform to jointly escort the safety and health of battery assets. In terms of battery recycling and reuse, based on the technical advantages of intensive battery management and controllable decommissioning, Wuhan Weineng has innovatively developed refined dismantling technology, short-process wet process technology and cathode material direct regeneration technology at the recycling end, so as to maximize the utilization of retired batteries and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
In addition to its own research and development, the company also actively cooperates with universities to jointly undertake scientific research projects and overcome technical problems. The relevant person in charge of the Hubei Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology said that Hubei will take enterprises as the main body, strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions "production, education, research and application", and strengthen the research and breakthrough in the direction of intelligence, safety and precision in the direction of dismantling and recycling for the high safety, high efficiency and scale of heterogeneous compatible utilization of "retired" power batteries, and continue to improve the technical level of the lithium battery recycling industry.
At present, Wuhan Weineng and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have jointly carried out the research and development of low-carbon comprehensive recycling and direct material recycling technology, through the unique technology, the separation of high-purity, low-impurity no-extract powder, will comprehensively enhance the full-cycle value of power batteries.
The industry-university-research practice of power battery recycling in Wuhan has also been recognized by the state. In 2022, Wuhan Power Regeneration Company's "intelligent flexible dismantling system" was approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as an excellent scenario for intelligent manufacturing. "Wuhan universities have exerted strong basic scientific research capabilities, complemented the engineering experience of enterprises, and promoted the development of technology. Bie Chuanyu, deputy general manager of Wuhan Power Regeneration Company, said.
Give full play to the advantages of the industrial chain, and the Wuhan metropolitan area has a lot to offer
Phosphorus is one of the indispensable materials for power batteries, mainly distributed in Hubei and Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan regions, among which Hubei has the most abundant resources, ranking first in the country. With abundant phosphate rock resources, coupled with the advantages of the "automobile corridor" industrial cluster of "Han Shixiangsui", more and more leading enterprises have laid out the power battery industry chain in the Wuhan metropolitan area, making the Wuhan metropolitan area a new agglomeration area for China's new energy power battery industry.
According to the 2022 Hurun China New Energy Industry Concentration Cities List released by the Hurun Research Institute, Wuhan ranks fourth in the country among the top 50 Chinese cities with the highest industrial agglomeration, and is also one of the top five cities with the highest concentration of new energy investment.
Xiaogan is becoming an important town in the new energy industry with the settlement of a number of new energy projects such as Chuneng New Energy, Xiantao has 4 new energy battery companies with a total investment of nearly 50 billion yuan, the output value of Ezhou's new energy industry in 2022 has exceeded 26 billion yuan, and Hubei Rongtong Hi-Tech Advanced Materials Group Co., Ltd. in Huangshi has an output value of more than 10 billion yuan in 2023 and is listed on the "2024 Global Unicorn List" of Hurun Research Institute.
In Baoshan Industrial Park, Huangshi Economic and Technological Development Zone, Hubei Bokong Automation Technology Co., Ltd. has invested 100 million yuan in the construction of an electric vehicle dismantling center, which is expected to be put into use in June 2025.
Founded in 2013, Hubei Bokong Automation Technology Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in automatic dismantling and recycling equipment for waste automobiles, and is the first batch of national high-tech enterprises in the automobile dismantling industry.
"Hubei is an important base for China's new energy vehicle manufacturing, with a strong industrial foundation, and the recycling of new energy batteries is an important part of the new energy vehicle industry, with great potential for future development. Yu Hanbin, general manager of Hubei Bokong Automation Technology Co., Ltd., said that the company aims at the market and carries out school-enterprise cooperation with Hubei University of Technology to develop flexible dismantling and cascade utilization technology of new energy vehicle power batteries, and has formed preliminary research results. The company is also preparing to use the "new energy vehicle flexible dismantling line" as the "unveiling leader" project, and widely distribute "hero posts" to domestic universities and institutes.
"Doing a good job in the flexible dismantling of new energy vehicles and the recycling of new energy batteries will contribute to the high-quality development of Hubei's new energy vehicle industry. Yu Hanbin said.
At present, Wuhan Power Recycling Company has set up power battery recycling outlets in Xiantao, and will further expand recycling channels and strengthen the linkage with metropolitan cities.
Li Shouding, executive deputy general manager of Ruikemei, believes that the transportation radius of Wuhan is moderate, and the transportation of battery waste from all over the country to Wuhan is not far, and it has significant advantages to sell it to all parts of the country after processing into products.
"The transportation integration of the Wuhan metropolitan area provides more convenient conditions for the transportation of upstream and downstream related industries of power batteries. The relevant person in charge of Wuhan Weineng said that the Wuhan metropolitan area has a world-class industrial cluster, and the new energy vehicle and power battery operation and recycling industry will be incorporated into the same industrial chain, forming a matching, complementary and integrated development with the power battery industry, which can enhance the concentration and clustering of the industry and make the industrial chain more resilient and competitive.
Shi Guangyou, Secretary-General of Wuhan New Energy Automobile Industry Association, suggested that Wuhan has strong scientific research strength, and all cities in the metropolitan area also have production capacity, which can rely on the existing industrial base and core enterprises in the circle, rationally allocate industrial resources around each link of the industrial chain, strengthen regional and upstream and downstream industrial resource sharing, complementary advantages, and integrated development, guide the agglomeration and development of enterprises, and form a power battery recycling industrial cluster.
Editor: Zhu Xidong
Duty Officer: Chen Qi
Editor-in-chief on duty: Cai Zaoqin