Japan's recycling system is in the transition stage from Ni-MH battery to lithium battery. It started earlier, has the mo
Japan's recycling system is in the transition stage from Ni-MH battery to lithium battery. It started earlier, has the most complete architecture and is in a slightly leading position in technology. Its practicability has been verified, and the only problem is its scale. Japan's recycling experience, its value and whether it can be used in the large-scale recycling system of lithium batteries will be verified before 2023.
Text/"Autobot" Huang
Power battery recycling is a marginal industry of "waiting for the wind". On the one hand, it spans new energy vehicles, chemicals and smelting (industrial base) and returns to basic industries from industrial applications, which is in the "marginal zone"; On the other hand, it is not popular for the time being because it has lost money.
Because of this, the industry is waiting for the "time when the wind blows"-the scale of used batteries is large enough, the recycling technology is mature enough to not cause additional environmental burden, and the income covers the cost of the recycling process.
Reuse is not the ultimate goal.
Pure electric products have been on the market for more than 10 years, but before 20 15 years, the global cumulative sales volume was only 350,000. There are different battery schemes (lead acid in the early days, followed by nickel hydrogen, lithium cobaltate, lithium manganate and lithium ferrous phosphate), and more importantly, no data tracking system was established at that time. The latter is used to monitor the stage of power battery in the whole life cycle. This leads to high cost of recovery and reuse.
Due to the scale and technical reasons, the current battery recycling ecology is difficult to make a profit. Who will bear the deficit? Either the government provides subsidies, or manufacturers or suppliers add "waste battery treatment fee" to the price of the whole vehicle. If consumers pay the bill, it will hit new energy consumption.
The so-called "secondary utilization" direction is generally used as a fixed energy storage unit for temporary energy storage of scenery (wind energy+solar energy) in homes and public infrastructure.
However, reuse only delays disassembly and cannot be avoided. When the capacity of the power battery drops to 80%, it will enter the "second life". When the remaining 40% capacity, dismantling and recycling will be inevitable. Similarly, although all countries in the world are seeking to establish a recycling system with lithium batteries as the core, no country has established a traceable, environmentally friendly, reduced and profitable battery recycling system.
Toyota system
However, this does not mean that there is no precedent to follow. Since 1990s, the hybrid products developed by Toyota have been sold all over the world. In 2007, Toyota's global sales volume of HEV was 6.5438+0 million, and in 2065.438+07, it exceeded 6.5438+0 million. By the end of July this year, the global cumulative sales volume was 1 60,000, of which China110,000. Although the sales volume in China is growing rapidly, it is not the main recycling market in terms of early cumulative volume. The main recycling markets of Toyota HEV batteries are still the United States, Japan and Europe. At present, the annual sales volume of Toyota hybrid vehicles is about 6.5438+0.5 million, including 250,000-300,000 in the United States, 300,000-400,000 in Europe and 650,000 in Japan.
The HEV battery is a Ni-MH battery, and its volume and capacity are relatively small (1KWh). Toyota started the recycling plan for Ni-MH batteries on 1998, and formulated recycling guidelines in 2009, promising to recycle 100%. By 20 13, we began to try ladder utilization.
After Toyota has accumulated enough batteries in the dealer's store, it will get back the old batteries by exchanging the old ones for the new ones. Compared with lithium batteries, the stacking safety of old-fashioned nickel-hydrogen batteries is not a big problem. This has no reference significance for the current lithium batteries with hundreds of monomers.
Toyota tests and evaluates used batteries, which are divided into "maintenance system", step-by-step utilization and dismantling and scrapping.
The term "maintenance system" is a bit confusing. Although the overall performance of some batteries can not meet the use requirements, only a few batteries are poor, and they are reassembled into a new package after replacement.
In fact, so far, there are not many large-scale projects for cascade utilization. One of the things to boast about is that Toyota provided the facility energy storage system of Yellowstone National Park.
But dismantling and scrapping will encounter greater environmental problems. In 20 12, Toyota cooperated with Japan Heavy Chemical Industry Corporation, claiming that 80% of metals (mainly nickel) could be recovered.
In Europe, Toyota cooperates with French SNAM Company and Belgian Ke Mei Group to recover metals from lithium batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Obviously, if Toyota doesn't want to deal with the annoying electrolyte in Europe, it must rely on the industrial system of local companies.
The problem is the electrolyte.
When the battery comes to the stage of dismantling and recycling, trouble will follow. The main recycling value is concentrated in the battery anode (metal salt) and shell (generally aluminum alloy). The negative electrode (graphite) is too cheap to be recycled. Fortunately, graphite will not pollute the environment. Diaphragm is a polymer material, which is cheap and not easy to recycle, with little pollution, but not easy to degrade. The biggest trouble lies in the electrolyte, which basically has no recycling value and cannot be discarded. Waste water, waste gas and waste materials are still produced in the treatment process, which has no economic return, but it must be reduced and harmless.
Electrolyte treatment generally adopts mechanical methods to drain water, squeeze and collect, then introduces waste gas into wastewater for absorption, then makes wastewater "biodegradable" through oxidation treatment (realizing pollution-free degradation in natural environment), and then removes sediment through precipitation reaction, forming an adsorption-ultrafiltration combined technology with activated carbon and reverse osmosis membrane to remove organic pollutants and reach the standard of reclaimed water.
It should be pointed out that this is only a description in principle, and the specific treatment method is very complicated. Electrolyte recovery is a part of patent concentration, which is difficult and unprofitable because it consumes a lot of energy/resources. Most original equipment manufacturers have neither the ability nor the will to establish such a professional electrolyte treatment process. It is more reasonable to entrust it to professional manufacturers and let professional companies do professional things.
"Cooperation Organization" and 4R, who can lead?
Broadly speaking, Japan's waste recycling system is the most perfect in the world. In terms of power battery recycling, enterprises take the lead in recycling waste batteries from consumers by using the service network of retailers, car dealers or gas stations. The recycling route is opposite to the sales route. Like China, the government clearly stipulates that battery recycling is the responsibility of manufacturers. The government gives corresponding subsidies to improve the enthusiasm of recycling.
Nissan's joint venture with Sumitomo, as well as Sharp and NEC, are all seeking to "reuse" power batteries to store wind energy. Nissan introduced the solar street lamp, which connects the retired battery with the photovoltaic panel on the street lamp to store energy during the day and release energy for lighting at night. It can operate in isolation, independent of the power grid, and is suitable for emergency power supply under natural disasters. Considering that Japan is a country with frequent typhoons and earthquakes, this is of practical significance.
Honda also claims to start the battery "regeneration plan" and has a plan for secondary utilization. The difference is that Honda plans to dismantle waste batteries and extract metals such as cobalt and nickel. But the treatment of electrolyte and the like is not mentioned.
However, Honda also cooperates with SNAM, and the processing flow and production capacity are likely to be provided by the latter.
2065438+September 2008, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, Toyota, Nissan and other enterprises jointly launched the retired battery recycling project. Previously, every family had its own recycling plan, some of which had been implemented for many years. Why coordinate joint actions within the framework of "Japan Manufacturers Association"?
The official statement is "to achieve sustainable development", but it is actually implying that it is difficult to maintain it for a long time because of the high probability of losing money.
Major manufacturers * * * jointly established the "Japan Automobile Recycling Cooperation Organization", headquartered in Tokyo, and established seven factories in various parts of Japan, while establishing more battery recycling points.
After that, the host company can hand over the old batteries to the cooperative organization, and the former will pay the processing fee to the latter in proportion.
Also on 20 18, 4R Energy Company, a joint venture between Nissan and Sumitomo, was established, which was the first factory in Japan to recycle lithium batteries. However, I haven't heard of any business relationship between "Japan Automobile Recycling Cooperation Organization" established a few months ago and 4R. The advantage of the former lies in the extensive recycling system, while the latter is a standard commercial operation, and the recycling of lithium batteries can really make money. None of them explained to the public how to deal with this unprofitable but inevitable electrolyte.
At present, pure electric products have been produced in large quantities all over the world, with a large number of pure electric bags and great recycling potential. It's only a matter of time before accumulating small batteries to catch up with HEV and PHEV. However, in 20 19 and 2020, the global recycling of power batteries showed a downward trend. There are two reasons: the new generation lithium battery technology is more advanced and has a longer life; Second, most EV products are still in the middle and early stage of life cycle, and have not reached the stage of cascade utilization, let alone scrapped. After 2023, it is estimated that the recycling scale will exceed 100GWh, and then a relatively perfect recycling system can be truly established.
Japan's recycling system is in the transition stage from Ni-MH battery to lithium battery. It started early, has the most complete architecture, and is in a slightly leading position in technology (in fact, it is difficult to evaluate). The practicability has been verified, and the only problem is the scale. Japan's recycling experience, its value and whether it can be used in the large-scale recycling system of lithium batteries will be verified before 2023. (Text/"Autobot" Huang, part of the picture source network) Copyright statement This article is the exclusive original manuscript of Autobot, and the copyright belongs to Autobot.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.