How to build a good power battery recycling network? Some new energy vehicle battery recycling has hidden dangers

As the first batch of new energy vehicle power batteries enter the large-scale retirement period, how to properly recycle and reuse power batteries has become a topic of social concern. Some readers have written to reflect that some retired power batteries have not been able to enter standardized recycling companies, and even many have flowed into small workshops. Power batteries contain a variety of heavy metal elements. Improper handling is not only not conducive to resource recovery, but also causes safety hazards and environmental pollution.

"We produce new energy vehicles for the sake of environmental protection. If pollution is caused by the failure to properly recycle the power batteries, it will deviate from the original intention of this industry," said Zhao Xiaoyong, general manager of Beijing Saidmei Resource Recycling Research Institute Co., Ltd.

The number of companies that recycle retired power batteries is small and the cost is high, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the recycling process.

Data released by the Ministry of Public Security show that the number of new energy vehicles has increased by more than 1 million per year for three consecutive years. In the first half of this year, 1.103 million new energy vehicles were newly registered, a year-on-year increase of 234.92%. As of the end of June, the number of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded 6.03 million. If we assume that about 15% of power batteries are retired each year, the amount of power battery recycling will grow rapidly in the next few years, showing a blowout trend.

Xu Yanhua, Executive Deputy Secretary-General of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that the most pressing issue to be addressed is the recycling of retired power batteries. The reporter tried to search for keywords such as "power battery recycling" on the Internet and found that there are many channels for recycling, including online procurement platforms, second-hand trading platforms, etc., and even some "new energy vehicle owners" groups have recycling company phone numbers. These companies use slogans such as "national recycling", "timely settlement", and "high cost performance", and some directly mark "prices are 35% higher than peers". The reporter randomly called a waste material recycling company in Hebei, and the contact person said that if there are more than 5 new energy vehicle battery packs, they can also provide door-to-door acquisition services.

It is understood that according to the regulations of relevant departments, waste power batteries should be transferred to comprehensive utilization enterprises for cascade utilization or recycling, and recycling service outlets are not allowed to dismantle the collected waste power batteries without authorization except for safety inspection. But in fact, small workshops that recycle and dismantle batteries have always existed.

On the one hand, there are not many standardized recycling companies. In 2018 and 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology twice released a list of 27 companies that meet the industry standard conditions for the comprehensive utilization of waste power batteries of new energy vehicles. They are divided into two categories: cascade utilization and recycling. They are called white-list companies in the industry. The industry generally reflects that the number of white-list companies is too small to meet the recycling market demand.

On the other hand, in terms of acquisition prices, standardized enterprises cannot compete with non-standard enterprises, especially small workshops. Blue Valley Smart (Beijing) Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is one of the white-listed enterprises belonging to cascade utilization. Wang Xiaopeng, director of the company's energy integration department, introduced that the current price of power battery recycling is chaotic, and standardized enterprises are at a disadvantage in terms of cost. "Cascade utilization enterprises must meet more than 50 evaluation conditions to enter the white list. In 2019, we spent several million yuan just on upgrading and renovating the factory." Wang Xiaopeng said that according to regulations, the transportation of retired power batteries must be carried out by enterprises with dangerous goods transportation qualifications in accordance with standard requirements, "but small workshops may do a distribution or simple bulk transportation to pull the power batteries back."

In addition, the current power battery specifications are diverse, and most of them are single-piece and small batches, which makes it difficult for companies to realize economies of scale. Xu Zewei, a member of the National Committee of the China Association for Science and Technology, said that the current storage, transportation and disassembly costs of recycled power batteries are relatively high. In the absence of incentive policy support and mature market mechanism guarantees, the economic efficiency of battery recycling in some standardized companies is still not high.

Non-standard enterprises, especially small workshops, handle retired power batteries with many safety risks and low resource recovery rates.

Generally speaking, when the capacity of a power battery decays to less than 80% of the rated capacity, it faces retirement, but it can still be used in low-speed vehicles or energy storage equipment. Xu Yanhua said that the biggest risk of handling waste power batteries by non-standard enterprises, especially small workshops, is safety. "First, retired power batteries are prone to fire and explosion during the treatment process; second, the products produced by cascade utilization also have quality safety risks." In fact, some retired power batteries flow into small workshops and are made into small power banks, or simply processed to pretend to be new batteries, or even extracted precious metals by native methods, which brings double safety and environmental risks.

Standardized enterprises have put a lot of effort into safety. Wang Xiaopeng introduced that in order to ensure the safe operation of batteries, Blue Valley Smart Energy has developed a battery online monitoring and management platform to monitor the status of each battery in real time through the Internet. "If the battery has abnormal information such as overcurrent or overvoltage, the device will automatically send information to the platform, and the platform will notify relevant personnel to handle it. If high-risk information such as battery overheating occurs, the platform can also remotely cut off the power supply to the device." Wang Xiaopeng said.

Retired power batteries that cannot be reused can be disassembled, crushed, and screened to extract rare metal elements for recycling. Compared with lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary lithium batteries have a high content of some rare metals and higher recycling efficiency, so small workshops are more inclined to recycle ternary lithium batteries. However, the treatment of ternary lithium batteries by small workshops is worrying. According to an industry insider, he once saw a small workshop in a southern province, "in a remote village at the foot of the mountain, all manual work, the working environment is very poor, and the workers have no protection measures, which is harmful to both people and the environment."

It is understood that due to different process technologies, the recycling efficiency varies greatly, and the resource recycling efficiency and refining quality of small workshops are not high. According to Zhao Xiaoyong, most domestic companies currently use hydrometallurgical processes. They have calculated that the recovery rate of the whole group of ternary lithium batteries using hydrometallurgical processes is less than 44%, and the recovery rate of the whole group of iron-lithium batteries is less than 28%. However, some standardized companies use other processes, and the recovery rate of the whole group of two types of batteries can reach more than 90%. "These are all data from more formal companies. Small workshops use manual and simple equipment operations, and the recovery rate is even lower." Zhao Xiaoyong said.

Strengthen the construction of traceability management platform and improve the recycling and utilization traceability management system

Xu Zewei suggested that the construction of a power battery recycling system should be accelerated, and a traceable and traceable recycling supervision system should be established for power battery recycling to achieve full life cycle supervision of power batteries. At the same time, a recycling system with new energy vehicle companies as the main responsible body should be established. For example, new energy vehicle manufacturers can implement a recycling method of exchanging old for new for self-produced new energy vehicle power batteries. On the one hand, it will improve the efficiency of new energy vehicle companies in recycling and reusing power batteries and reduce the costs of vehicle companies; on the other hand, it will strengthen channel control to prevent retired power batteries from flowing into small workshops.

In recent years, relevant departments have successively issued a series of policy measures, including guidelines for the construction and operation of new energy vehicle power battery recycling service outlets, management methods for cascade utilization, and industry standard conditions for comprehensive utilization. Recently, the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments once again proposed to strengthen the construction of a traceability management platform for new energy vehicle power batteries and improve the traceability management system for the recycling and utilization of new energy vehicle power batteries.

"So far, retired power batteries mainly come from new energy vehicles before 2015. The total number of vehicles in use at that time was about 500,000." Xu Yanhua said that due to the small overall scale, the power battery recycling system and import system are still in the process of formation.