With the continuous development of automobile intelligence and electrification, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will continue to increase. In 2020, China’s new energy vehicle sales of 1.367 million, an increase of 3.9%, of which pure electric vehicle sales of 1.116 million, plug-in hybrid sales of 251,000, domestic new energy vehicle sales are expected to reach more than 15 million in 2030, this period will bring a lot of power battery recycling step utilization space.
With the increase in the number of electric vehicles, the number of retired lithium-ion power batteries has also increased significantly, and the recycling of retired power batteries has become a serious problem to be solved. If the abandoned lithium batteries are not recycled, it will have a serious impact on the natural environment. After the recovery of lithium batteries for technical extraction, many materials can be reused.
The recycling of power batteries is mainly divided into two cycle processes: cascade utilization and disassembly, recycling and recycling, and the recycling cycle of power batteries starts from cascade utilization.
Cascade utilization is a mild scrap, mainly for the battery capacity is reduced to less than 80%, can not be applied to new energy vehicles, but the battery itself is not scrapped, you can decommissioned batteries, recycling, screening, reuse in other fields, typical applications are energy storage, such as landscape energy storage, peak cutting and valley filling, backup power, home power regulation.
Cascade utilization can ease the pressure of recycling, reduce environmental pollution, improve economic efficiency, and help the development of renewable energy. Recycling is a heavy scrap, the general battery capacity has been seriously lost, can not continue to use, only through chemical refining battery nickel, cobalt, lithium and other precious metals to achieve the purpose of recycling.
From the perspective of application fields, the cascade utilization of decommissioned power batteries can be used as energy storage materials to carry out peak use of valley electricity and smooth the power fluctuations of distributed power sources. It can also be used as a backup power supply for communication base stations; Or used in low-speed electric vehicles, electric motorcycles and other scenarios with relatively low battery performance requirements.
Decommissioned power batteries have great application potential in the fields of energy storage and low-speed electric vehicles. The energy storage scenario does not have high requirements on the remaining battery capacity. The energy storage system can use the cascade utilization battery with the remaining capacity range of 20%-80%, and the larger utilization range can improve the cascade utilization economy.
In the future, with the improvement of battery performance, the value of echelon utilization will become more and more large, there will be more Oems and battery factories to invest in this area, so as to amortize the cost of the whole life of the battery. From the perspective of the main layout, upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain such as resources, materials, batteries and new energy vehicles are actively carrying out the recycling layout, and third-party resource recycling enterprises are also involved. With the approaching of the climax of power battery scrapping, enterprises are gradually investing in plant construction and capital acquisition. Due to the responsibility mechanism of power battery recycling and the systematic complexity of battery recycling, strategic alliance cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain is an inevitable trend in the future.
Power battery development so far, the consistency of different manufacturers of batteries is low, power batteries and energy storage battery technical standards are different, some retired batteries may not meet the requirements of the use of energy storage batteries, and battery capacity, voltage, internal resistance, etc. in the cascade use, will form a cliff drop in a few cycles, causing great difficulties for later use and maintenance. Overall, China’s retired power battery echelon utilization is still in the pilot stage.
Considering the life cycle of the power battery, the direct scrap volume of the domestic lithium power battery has not yet reached the outbreak period, and the source of the waste battery is still mainly the production waste of the battery factory and the consumer lithium battery. At present, there is no professional battery recycling network in China, which mainly relies on the extensive recycling of lithium batteries by similar methods of waste items, causing environmental pollution. Under the emphasis of the extended producer responsibility system, electric vehicle and power battery manufacturers will undertake the construction of the recycling network and gradually realize the systemization.
Post time: Jan-25-2024