According to national regulations, when the power battery capacity decays to about 70% of the rated capacity, it will face retirement and forced recycling, and the power batteries equipped with the first batch of new energy vehicles are in the retirement period. Where are these power batteries? How to recycle? On April 1, Jimu news reporter walked into the only power battery recycling enterprise Gem Co.Ltd(002340) , Wuhan, to understand the “past and present life” of power battery.
power battery is not recycled and there is a risk of pollution
On the 1st, at the gate of Wuhan power battery regeneration technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Gem Co.Ltd(002340) company, the reporter saw an energy storage station with a length of more than ten meters. There were several groups of waste power batteries in the energy storage station. The company recycled these waste power batteries to form a huge “charging treasure” to continuously supply power to the plant.
“This is just an epitome of Gem Co.Ltd(002340) in exploring the way of resource utilization.” Dr. Zhang Yuping, general manager of the company, said that generally speaking, the average service life of automobile power battery is 5 to 7 years. When the battery capacity decays to about 70%, it generally needs to be decommissioned. In the context of the rapid growth of production and sales of new energy vehicles, the scrapped amount of power batteries is rising together with the installed amount of power batteries.
In Zhang Yuping’s view, no retired power battery is waste. Through disassembly and assembly, a retired battery can be reborn. What they need to do is to “eat and squeeze” the waste power batteries: the metal shell of the battery pack is sold as waste aluminum and scrap iron; Plastic and diaphragm are used for harmless pyrolysis; Circuit board is used for harmless cracking or extraction of precious metals; Electrolyte is used for harmless pyrolysis; The negative electrode is used to produce electrolytic copper; Cathode materials are used to recycle battery materials.
What happens if the waste power battery is not reasonably recycled? “Waste power battery materials pose potential pollution risks to the environment.” Zhang Yuping, for example, said that nickel and cobalt in cathode materials will lead to heavy metal pollution; The electrolyte is easy to hydrolyze and will produce strong corrosivity; Graphite in negative electrode material causes dust pollution; Membrane incineration will produce dioxin and other persistent organic pollutants.
Zhang Yuping introduced that retired power batteries generally have two ways of recycling, one is echelon utilization, the other is recycling. The so-called echelon utilization refers to the gradual utilization of batteries with relatively high battery capacity in two or three wheeled low-speed vehicles, UPS energy storage and other fields; Recycling refers to the dismantling of retired batteries through technical means to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metals for resource utilization.
How to distinguish whether a battery is used step by step or recycled? Zhang Yuping said that about 70% of the battery capacity can be used for electric energy storage and low-speed electric vehicles, “such as the energy storage station at the gate of the company to supply power to the plant”; If the battery capacity is less than 70% and more than 60%, it can be used for intelligent street lamps; If the battery capacity is less than 4%, it can be disassembled and broken to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metals for battery raw materials.
“Generally speaking, 70% of the recycled batteries can be used for echelon utilization and 30% for recycling.” Zhang Yuping said that the carbon emission reduction rate of echelon utilization can reach more than 90%, and the carbon emission reduction rate of renewable utilization can reach more than 70%.
after 35 processes, the battery is retired to regeneration
In 2018, 2020 and 2021, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued three batches of announcements on the list of enterprises in the industry standard conditions for the comprehensive utilization of waste power batteries of new energy vehicles. So far, only 45 enterprises have entered the list. These “white list” enterprises are the “regular army” recognized by the state. They have a relatively perfect system and operation ability in terms of recycling qualification, channel, technology and scale Gem Co.Ltd(002340) ‘s Jingmen base is listed in the first batch and Wuhan base is listed in the second batch, which is the largest in China.
What is a reasonable disposal? After a power battery is decommissioned, Gem Co.Ltd(002340) will be recycled, handed over and transported to the warehouse for safe storage management. After entering the warehouse, scan the code and enter the battery, register the warehousing account and disposal account, and safely monitor the storage after discharge. Then carry out the fine disassembly of the battery and input the data into the background software. Finally, the power battery processing flow information tracing and cloud monitoring.
The reporter saw in the power battery disassembly workshop in the factory that many groups of eliminated automobile power batteries were placed, and the workers disassembled each battery pack with pneumatic tools. In the assembly workshop of the factory, workers input data in front of the MES system computer next to the machine while putting parts into the new battery packaging.
“Workers are measuring the voltage and internal resistance. Only when the voltage and internal resistance of each part have the same service life can they be reassembled into a new battery.” Zhang Yuping introduced that there are 120 workers in the disassembly workshop and assembly workshop, with a total of 35 processes. Only a power battery can be “retired” to “reborn”.
“When citizens buy a piece of pork in the supermarket, they can scan the QR code and trace the source and whereabouts of the pork in the whole process. Now, this vision has also been realized in the power battery industry.” According to Zhang Yuping, Gem Co.Ltd(002340) has built a traceable whole process information management system, which realizes the whole process information management of waste power batteries from recycling, transportation, storage, disassembly, reengineering and echelon utilization, seamlessly connects product codes and one click connects with the national traceability platform, so as to realize the whole life cycle traceability and the source and whereabouts of waste power batteries.
According to Zhang Yuping, in 2020, Gem Co.Ltd(002340) recycled power batteries achieved 100% comprehensive utilization. In 2025, the power battery recycling industry is expected to scrap and recycle 1.2 million tons of batteries, and Gem Co.Ltd(002340) is expected to recycle 250000 tons, accounting for one third of the total.
not so much business as social responsibility
According to the data, from 2021 to 2025, the global sales of new energy vehicles will increase by more than 30%, and will exceed 13 million in 2025. The total decommissioning amount of China Shipbuilding Industry Group Power Co.Ltd(600482) batteries in 2020 is about 200000 tons, which is expected to rise to 1.2 million tons by 2025. The output value of echelon utilization and recycling is expected to exceed 100 billion.
Tianyancha data show that up to now, China has more than 9500 power battery related enterprises. Among them, 1100 newly registered enterprises were added in 2021, with a growth rate of 13.0%.
Although in addition to the white list, there are many small workshops engaged in non-standard power battery recycling business. However, in order to reduce the phenomenon of “bad money expelling good money”, the state is also further regulating it. Recently, the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of industry and information technology said that this year, we will focus on improving the recycling system of power batteries, support universities to tackle key technical problems such as disassembly and recycling, and constantly improve the recycling rate and resource utilization efficiency.
The eight ministries and commissions have also jointly issued the notice on accelerating the implementation plan of promoting the comprehensive utilization of industrial resources, which mentioned that the industry standard management of the comprehensive utilization of renewable resources such as waste power batteries and waste mobile phones should be implemented, and separate guidance notes should be made for improving the recycling system of waste power batteries.
Insiders pointed out that some foreign experience can be used as a reference for the future of the power battery industry. For example, Germany has been able to achieve the full recycling of waste batteries, and then carry out treatment and classification; The relevant legislation of the United States is the most and detailed; Japan is a leader in the recycling of used batteries in Asia. At present, all automotive lead-acid batteries have been recycled, and the recovery rate of other secondary batteries has exceeded 80%.
Professor Xu Kaihua, chairman of Gem Co.Ltd(002340) group, introduced that the group has invested more than 700 million yuan in power battery recycling alone. In Xu Kaihua’s view, the economic effect is not the first in environmental protection enterprises, but the social benefit. Lithium, cobalt and nickel in power batteries are scarce resources, and the development cost is very high. Recycling resources is the only way for development. Xu Kaihua believes that in the next five or six years, power battery recycling is a tuyere industry, which will usher in greater market space. “Waste power battery recycling is not so much a business as a heavy social responsibility.”
