Japan’s recycling system is in the transition stage from nickel-metal hydride to lithium batteries. It started earlier, has the most complete architecture, and is slightly ahead in technology. Its practicality has been verified. The only problem is scale. The value of Japan’s recycling experience and whether it can be used in a large-scale recycling system for lithium batteries will be verified before 2023.
Article/"Automobile Man" Huang Yaopeng
Power battery recycling is a fringe industry that is "waiting for the wind to come". On the one hand, it spans new energy vehicles, chemical industry, and smelting (industrial base), returning from industrial applications to basic industries, and is in the "border zone"; on the other hand, it is temporarily unpopular because it loses 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 burdens, and the benefits cover the cost of the recycling process.
Reuse is not the final destination
It has been more than 10 years since pure electric products entered the market, but before 2015, global cumulative sales were only 350,000 units. The battery solutions were different (early lead-acid, followed by nickel metal hydride, lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganate, and lithium iron phosphate). More importantly, there was no data tracking system established at that time. The latter is used to monitor the stage of the power battery in its life cycle. This results in high costs for recycling and reuse.
Due to scale and technical reasons, it is currently difficult to make a profit in the battery recycling ecosystem. Who will bear the shortfall? Either the government will provide subsidies, or the manufacturer or supplier will add a "waste battery disposal fee" to the vehicle selling price. If consumers pay the bill, it will hit new energy consumption.
The so-called "secondary utilization" direction is roughly as a fixed energy storage unit for temporary energy storage of wind and solar (wind energy + solar energy) in household and public infrastructure.
However, secondary use only postpones dismantling, but cannot avoid it. When the capacity of a power battery drops to 80%, it will enter the "second life cycle". When 40% of the capacity remains, disassembly and recycling will be inevitable. For the same reason, although countries around the world are seeking to establish a recycling system with lithium batteries as the core, no country has yet established a traceable, environmentally friendly, reduction, and profitable battery recycling system.
Toyota System
However, this does not mean that there is no precedent to follow. Starting in the 1990s, hybrid products developed by Toyota began to be sold around the world. In 2007, Toyota's HEV global cumulative sales reached 1 million units, and exceeded 10 million units in 2017. As of the end of July this year, global cumulative sales were 16 million units, of which 1 million units were sold in China. Although China's sales are growing rapidly, it is not a major recycling market in terms of early accumulation. The main recycling markets for Toyota HEV batteries are still the United States, Japan and Europe. Currently, Toyota's annual sales of hybrid vehicles are approximately 1.5 million, with sales ranging from 250,000 to 300,000 in the United States, 300,000 to 400,000 in Europe, and stable at around 650,000 in Japan.
However, HEV batteries are nickel-metal hydride batteries, and their size and capacity are relatively small (1KWh). Toyota started a nickel-metal hydride battery recycling program in 1998, established recycling guidelines in 2009, and committed to 100% recycling. By 2013, we began to try echelon utilization.
Toyota waits for dealer stores to accumulate a sufficient number of batteries before taking back the old batteries through trade-in. Compared with lithium batteries, the accumulation of old nickel-metal hydride batteries is less of a safety issue. This has no reference significance for today's lithium batteries, which often have hundreds or thousands of cells.
Toyota tests and evaluates used batteries, which are divided into "maintenance system", sequential use and dismantling and scrapping.
The term "maintenance system" is a bit confusing. Although the overall performance of some batteries does not meet the usage requirements, only individual individual indicators are poor, and they must be replaced and reassembled into a new PACK.
In fact, there are not many large-scale projects in tiered utilization so far. One of the few things worth boasting about is that Toyota provided the energy storage system for Yellowstone Park facilities.
Dismantling and scrapping will encounter relatively big environmental problems. In 2012, Toyota partnered with Japan Heavy Chemical Industries, claiming that it could recycle 80% of metals (mainly nickel).
In Europe, Toyota cooperates with French company SNAM and Belgian Umicore Group, and the latter two recycle metals in lithium batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Obviously, Toyota does not want to deal with the annoying electrolyte in Europe, so it must resort to the industrial system of local companies.
The trouble lies in the electrolyte
When the battery reaches the stage of disassembly and recycling, trouble will arise. The main recycling value is concentrated in the battery positive electrode (metal salt) and casing (generally aluminum alloy). The negative electrode (graphite) is too cheap and not worth recycling. Fortunately, graphite does not pollute the environment. The separator is a polymer material, which is cheap and not easy to recycle. It is not very polluting, but it is not easy to degrade. The biggest trouble is that the electrolyte has basically no recycling value and cannot be discarded. Wastewater, waste gas and waste materials are still produced during the treatment process. There is no economic return, but it must be reduced and made harmless.
Electrolyte treatment generally involves mechanical discharge, squeezing and collection. Then the waste gas is passed into the wastewater for absorption, and then the wastewater is treated with oxidation to make it "biodegradable" (to achieve the goal in nature). Environmentally friendly degradation), and then remove the sediment through precipitation reaction, using activated carbon and reverse osmosis membrane to form adsorption-ultrafiltration combined technology to remove organic pollutants and meet the gray water standard.
It should be pointed out that this is only a description in principle, and the specific processing method is very complicated. Electrolyte recycling is a part where patents are concentrated. It is not only difficult, but also consumes a lot of energy/resources, but is unprofitable. Most OEMs have neither the ability nor the willingness 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.
Who can lead "collaborative institutions" and 4R
In a broad sense, Japan's waste recycling system is the most complete in the world. In the recycling of power batteries, enterprises take the lead and use the service network of retailers, car dealers or gas stations to recycle used batteries from consumers. The recycling route is opposite to the sales route. Like China, the government clearly stipulates that manufacturers are the responsible parties for battery recycling. The government provides corresponding subsidies to increase recycling enthusiasm.
The joint venture between Nissan and Sumitomo, together with Sharp, NEC, etc., are all seeking to "reuse" power batteries for wind and solar energy storage. Nissan has launched solar street lights, which connect decommissioned batteries to photovoltaic panels on the street lights. They store energy during the day and release energy from the street lights for lighting at night. They can operate in isolation and do not rely on the power grid, making them suitable for emergency power supply during natural disasters. Considering that Japan is a country prone to typhoons and earthquakes, this has practical significance.
Honda also claims to have launched a battery "regeneration plan" and has plans for secondary use. The difference is that Honda plans to dismantle used batteries itself and extract metals such as cobalt and nickel. However, there is no mention of electrolyte and other treatments.
However, Honda is also cooperating with SNAM, and the processing flow and production capacity are likely to be provided by the latter.
In September 2018, under the auspices of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Toyota, Nissan and other companies jointly launched a retired battery recycling project. Each company has already had its own recycling plan before, and some have been implemented for many years. Why do they need to coordinate joint actions within the framework of the "Japan Manufacturers Association"?
The official statement is "to achieve sustainable development", which actually implies that if you work alone, you are likely to lose money and it will be difficult to sustain yourself in the long term.
Major manufacturers *** jointly invested in the establishment of the "Japan Automobile Recycling Collaboration Agency", headquartered in Tokyo, and has established 7 factories across Japan and established more battery recycling points.
From now on, host manufacturers can hand over old batteries to cooperative agencies for disposal, and the former will pay a proportional processing fee to the latter.
Also in 2018, 4R Energy, a joint venture between Nissan and Sumitomo, was established. This is Japan’s first factory specializing in lithium battery recycling. However, we have not yet heard of any business relationship between the "Japan Automobile Recycling Cooperation Organization" and 4R, which was established a few months ago. The advantage of the former lies in its extensive recycling system, while the latter is a standard commercial operation, and you can really make money from lithium battery recycling. None of them explained to the public how to deal with electrolytes that are unprofitable but unavoidable.
At present, the volume of pure electric products has been increased globally, and pure electric PACK has a large volume and high recycling potential. It is only a matter of time before the accumulation catches up with the small batteries of HEV and PHEV. However, global power battery recycling is declining in 2019 and 2020.
Two reasons: First, the new generation of lithium batteries has more advanced technology and longer life; second, most EV products are still in the middle and early stages of their life cycles and have not yet reached the stage of echelon utilization, let alone scrapping. After 2023, it is expected that the recycling scale will exceed 100GWh, and only then can a relatively complete recycling system be truly established.
Japan’s recycling system is in the transition stage from nickel-metal hydride to lithium batteries. It started earlier, has the most complete architecture, and is slightly ahead of the curve in terms of technology (in fact, it is difficult to evaluate). Its practicality has been verified. The only problem is its scale. The value of Japan’s recycling experience and whether it can be used in a large-scale lithium battery recycling system will be verified before 2023. (Text/"Autobot" Huang Yaopeng, some pictures are from the Internet) Copyright Statement This article is an exclusive original manuscript of "Autobot", and the copyright belongs to "Autobot".
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.