At present, my country's cumulative production of new energy vehicles has exceeded 2.8 million, ranking first in the world in terms of scale. The cumulative amount of power storage batteries in my country has exceeded 900,000 tons, and at the same time, more waste batteries will be used. If the old battery is not disposed of properly, it will cause serious pollution of the environment and harm to human health.

According to the forecast of the my country Automotive Technology Research Center, from 2018 to 2020, the country's cumulative scrapped power batteries will reach 120,000 to 200,000 tons; by 2025, the annual scrap volume of power batteries may reach 350,000 tons, which will increase year by year.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced in August 2018 the Interim Provisions on the Traceability Management of the Recycling and Utilization of Power Batteries for New Energy Vehicles, which came into effect on August 1, 2018. The automobile production companies are required to assume the main responsibility for the recycling of power batteries, and the battery production companies, end-of-life automobile recycling and dismantling companies, tiered utilization companies and recycling companies are required to perform corresponding responsibilities in all links of power battery recycling.

According to agency analysis, the battery life of electric vehicle batteries produced in early 2014 is generally 5-8 years. According to the sales and use time of new energy vehicles, the earliest batch of electric vehicle batteries on the market is at the critical point of elimination.

At present, most of the important materials for power lithium batteries in the market are lithium-ion batteries, such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel. As market demand increases, the economic benefits are also huge. According to wind data, the average price of lithium carbonate in the third quarter of 2018 was about 114,000 yuan/ton, and the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 80-85 yuan/ton.

What can the recycled lithium-ion battery do?

When the capacity of the used power battery decays below 80%, the car cannot be allowed to run normally. However, there are still energy residues, which can still be used in other fields such as energy storage and distributed photovoltaic power generation. Among them, there is a huge demand for energy storage batteries in communication base stations, which can absorb most of the waste power lithium-ion batteries. Data show that the scale of global mobile communication base station investment is expected to reach 52.9 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 4.34% year-on-year.

Favorable policies help recycling companies to seize industry outlets

Let’s take our country’s iron tower as an example. Our country’s iron tower provides communication operators with communication base station construction and operation services. The operation of the communication tower requires backup power. In the past, lead-acid batteries were used as an important backup power source. The lead-acid batteries purchased by Iron Tower reach approximately 100,000 tons each year. However, lead-acid batteries have some shortcomings, such as short service life, low performance, and also contain a large amount of heavy metal lead. If they are discarded, they can easily cause secondary pollution to the environment if they are not handled properly.

In addition to purchasing new lithium-ion batteries as power sources, my country's towers have conducted trials to replace lead-acid batteries with thousands of base station batteries in 12 provinces and cities across the country. As of the end of 2018, about 120,000 base stations in 31 provinces and cities across the country have used about 1.5GWh of echelon batteries, replacing about 45,000 tons of lead-acid batteries.

In addition, GEM is actively preparing for the post-subsidy era of new energy vehicles. Through cascade utilization and material recycling, GEM has built a full life cycle value cycle chain system for new energy vehicle battery recycling materials and battery pack recycling. Hubei GEM Co., Ltd. built an intelligent and non-destructive disassembly line for waste power lithium batteries, and developed liquid-phase synthesis and high-temperature synthesis processes. The spherical cobalt powder produced can be directly used in the production of battery cathode materials.

Is the scrapped power battery easy to use?

Judging from the effect of the company’s current use, it is not only the Tower Company, but the State Grid has built demonstration sites in Beijing Daxing and Zhangbei. BAIC and the New Energy Battery Company have implemented energy storage power station projects and containerized energy storage projects, Shenzhen BYD, Guoxuan Gaoke and other companies use retired power batteries to produce echelon-utilized battery products for the field of power backup. Wuxi GEM and SF Express are exploring the use of tiered batteries for urban logistics vehicles. Zhongtianhong Lithium and others have promoted the application of tiered batteries in vehicles such as sanitation and sightseeing through the lease and sale model.

In order to standardize this industry, relevant departments are also beginning to establish a power battery recycling system, and run a comprehensive management platform for the national monitoring of new energy vehicles and the traceability of power battery recycling. At present, 393 automobile production companies, 44 scrapped automobile recycling and dismantling companies, 37 echelon utilization companies and 42 recycling companies have joined this national platform.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has also decided to carry out recycling pilot projects in 17 regions including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Shanghai, as well as my country’s iron tower companies. Forty-five companies including BAIC New Energy and GAC Mitsubishi have set up a total of 3,204 recycling service outlets, which are mainly concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and central regions where the number of new energy vehicles is relatively high.

However, as an emerging industry, the road ahead is definitely not smooth. The biggest difficulties include the technical bottleneck of recycling that has yet to be broken through, the recycling system has not yet been formed, and the difficulty of recycling profitability. In this regard, it is necessary to improve the supporting policy support system, introduce diversified incentive measures, let the company taste the sweetness, give play to the main purpose of the market, accelerate the improvement of the recycling system, and form a multi-party joint force.

According to the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: The recycling technology is relatively mature, but the key technologies and equipment such as the efficient extraction of valuable metals need to be upgraded. The level of pollution prevention and control in the dismantling and treatment of waste power batteries needs to be improved. On the issue of poor economy.

In the next step, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will make full use of the existing industrial base of scrapped automobiles, dismantling of electronic appliances and non-ferrous metallurgy, and coordinate the layout of power battery recycling companies to promote the sustainable development of the industry.

Through favorable policies and market companies' efforts to deploy battery recycling, a complete and standardized industrial chain is expected to be formed in the near future. Industry leaders will also be ready to emerge