Power battery recycling status——direct disassembly and recycling have been economical

Power battery recycling is becoming a key means to solve the problem of resource waste and environmental pollution caused by the decommissioning of new energy vehicle batteries. With the rapid growth of the new energy vehicle market, a large number of decommissioned batteries will emerge in the next few years, bringing huge market demand for the echelon utilization and disassembly of power batteries.

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In the current recycling methods, echelon utilization and disassembly recycling are the main ways, and each has different application scenarios and economic benefits. Power battery recycling can not only alleviate the problem of raw material shortage, but also has significant environmental protection and economic value. This article will discuss the status quo, technical barriers and future development potential of power battery recycling. 

Power battery recycling method: echelon utilization + disassembly recycling

The life cycle of a power battery generally includes production, use, scrap, decomposition and reuse. After the battery capacity of the car power battery is reduced to 80%, its charge and discharge performance will not meet the requirements of the car, and it needs to be scrapped. In addition to the decrease in chemical activity of such power batteries, the chemical composition inside the battery has not changed, and the battery capacity is less than 60%.

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Therefore, the battery can be reorganized in the range of 60%-80% battery capacity, and the echelon is applied to the occasions with lower power requirements; For the power battery with small recycling cycle life and less than 60% capacity, disassemble and recycle, extract valuable metals and materials, and apply to the production of cells, modules and systems, so that the entire power battery cycle forms a closed-loop state.

Cascade utilization of power batteries: decommissioning and testing of batteries whose performance on electric vehicles decreases to less than 80% of their initial performance, and then screening and regrouping of batteries with better performance for secondary utilization in relatively mild use conditions, often used in energy storage, telecommunications base stations and low-speed electric vehicles.

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Disassembly and recycling of power batteries: the lithium batteries after direct scrapping and echelon utilization are centrally recycled, and valuable metal elements such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, etc. are extracted through physical, chemical and other recycling processes and applied to battery recycling.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are suitable for first echelon and then disassembly and recycling

Under normal discharge at 1C rate, the capacity decay rate of lithium iron phosphate battery is much less than that of ternary battery. Lithium iron phosphate does not contain cobalt, nickel and other high value metal materials, direct recycling is difficult to profit. In addition, when the number of ternary battery cycles is about 2500 times, the battery capacity decays to 80% after that, its relative capacity will show a rapid decline trend with the increase of the number of cycles, the number of echelon cycles is small, and the utilization value of echelon is very low; The lithium iron phosphate battery capacity with the increase of the number of cycles shows a slow decay trend, when the battery capacity decays to 80%, the lithium iron phosphate battery decommissioned from the car still has more cycles, so it has a higher echelon utilization value.

The raw materials of ternary batteries contain high-value metal elements, and their disassembly and recycling value is much higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries. According to statistics, power lithium battery monomer materials, positive electrode materials, electrolyte, aluminum alloy shell, diaphragm and negative electrode materials accounted for the largest cost, of which the ternary battery positive electrode materials accounted for more than 40% of the cost.

With the rising prices of cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium and other materials in recent years, the proportion of ternary material anode materials in the future battery single cost will show a sharp rise. The waste ternary power battery contains a lot of precious metals, which has high recovery efficiency, and has more cost advantages than the direct mining ore production mode, and has higher resource recycling value.

The application scenarios of cascade utilization are classified into static scenarios and dynamic scenarios. The static scenario is mainly chemical energy storage, which is used in power generation side/distribution side/user side energy storage, communication base station backup power supply, home/commercial energy storage, distributed power generation/micro-grid, etc. The dynamic scenario is mainly construction machinery, low-speed electric vehicles, logistics vehicles, urban sanitation vehicles, agricultural machinery, drones and so on.

The battery recycling industry is booming, and the market size is expected to exceed 100 billion in 2027

The recycling of used power batteries is conducive to reducing environmental pollution and promoting the recycling of scarce resources. Pollution of waste batteries: lithium hexafluorophosphate in waste batteries is strongly corrosive, and will produce toxic gas hydrogen fluoride after water or high temperature, hydrogen fluoride is easily soluble in water, and can produce an aqueous solution with strong corrosion. When inhaled, hydrogen fluoride can cause strong irritation to the upper respiratory tract.

The organic solvent in lithium iron phosphate battery and its decomposition and hydrolysis products will cause serious pollution to the atmosphere, water and soil; After the accumulation of heavy metals such as copper in the environment, they will eventually be transmitted through the biological chain and endanger human health. Once phosphorus enters lakes and other water bodies, it is easy to cause water eutrophication.

Terpolymer lithium battery is more harmful to the environment than lithium iron phosphate battery, in its electrode material contains nickel, cobalt, manganese, fluorine and other substances, if these substances are not scientifically disposed of, will cause up to 50 years of pollution to the soil, water, carbon and graphite contained in the negative electrode material will also cause dust pollution to the air.

The rapid growth of new energy vehicles, power batteries ushered in a tide of retirement, power battery recycling needs urgent. Since 2015, the production of new energy vehicles in China has begun to increase, and the sales volume of new energy vehicles has been rising, and the sales volume has reached 6.887 million in 2022.

Driven by new energy vehicles, the installed capacity of power batteries has grown rapidly, and the installed capacity of power batteries in China will reach 294.6GWh in 2022. Considering that the average service life of the current new energy source vehicle power battery is about 5 years, we judge that the power battery will usher in a large-scale decommissioning tide in the next 2-3 years, and the need for power battery recycling is urgent.

Constrained by upstream raw material resources, raw material prices continue to rise, driving up the price of recycling, and helping battery recycling. In the context of the rapid increase in sales of new energy vehicles and the high dependence of China's lithium battery raw materials, the imbalance between supply and demand of upstream nickel, cobalt, lithium and other raw materials has led to skyrocketing raw material prices, causing great pressure on downstream power battery enterprises.

Recycling power batteries will realize the reuse of lithium battery raw materials, effectively alleviating the supply constraints of China's battery metals; At the same time, the sharp rise in the price of lithium battery raw materials has improved the economy of power battery recycling, which helps improve the profitability of recycling enterprises.

Battery recycling participants are numerous and there are technical and financial barriers

The power battery recycling market is in the early stage of industry development, and no leading enterprises have yet emerged, and the competition pattern temporarily presents a situation of "small, scattered and chaotic". Between 2013 and 2021, the number of registered power battery recycling enterprises surged from 214 to 25,000, with many participants, almost covering the new energy automobile industry chain, involving different backgrounds such as Oems, battery factories, material factories and third-party recycling enterprises.

The power battery "ID card" maintenance traceability has not been smooth, the recycling policy has not been perfect, and the qualification requirements of recycling battery enterprises are high, resulting in the number of small workshops in the industry is much more than the regular army. As of January 10, 2023, in the four batches of power battery recycling white list enterprises issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of enterprises on the list is only more than 80, and the number of regular recycling enterprises is limited.

Power battery recycling industry faces the following four barriers, channel + technology to build the core competitiveness of power battery recycling enterprises. 1) Channel Barriers & Technical Barriers: At present, the amount of decommissioned batteries is less than the recycling capacity of each enterprise, so there are some recycling enterprises can not get decommissioned batteries, and only when the amount of recycled batteries is enough, the equipment utilization rate is high, recycling can be economical, so the recycling channel directly affects the capacity and recycling cost of power battery recycling enterprises.

Establishing a stable and smooth recycling channel is one of the most important success factors for recycling enterprises. The recycling technology directly affects the recovery rate of the power battery, which is the key factor to determine the profitability of the power battery.

All in all, channels and technical capabilities are the core competitiveness of power battery recycling enterprises, and with the increase of technology research and development capabilities of power battery recycling enterprises in recent years, the number of power battery recycling patents in China has shown a steady growth trend.

Management barriers & financial barriers: the upstream of power battery recycling enterprises involves car enterprises, battery factories, energy storage enterprises, scrapped car dismantlers, etc. The enterprises themselves also need to establish recycling service outlets across the country, and the cascade utilization needs to deal with enterprises in different application scenarios, so they need strong resource integration and management capabilities.

In addition, power battery recycling enterprises generally require cash settlement when recycling batteries or waste, and in the sale of products, in the face of downstream material factories or battery factories have lower discourse power, so there will be a certain account period, enterprises need to bear greater cash flow risk, with certain financial barriers.

Conclusion

The power battery recycling industry still faces challenges in terms of technology, policies, channels, etc., but with the popularity of new energy vehicles and the rise in raw material prices, the recycling market has broad prospects.

By continuously improving the level of recycling technology, building efficient recycling channels and improving relevant policies, the power battery recycling industry will realize the transformation from "small, scattered and chaotic" to standardization and scale. In the future, power battery recycling will not only become the core of resource regeneration, but also inject new vitality into the green economy and sustainable development.

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