Japan's recycling system is at the stage of transition from NiMH to Li-ion batteries. Started earlier, the most complete structure, technology is also in a slightly ahead of the point, practicality has been verified, the only problem is the scale. Japan's recycling experience, in the end, the value of geometry, can be used for large-scale lithium battery recycling system, will be verified before 2023.
Wen / "car people" Huang Yaopeng
Power battery recycling, is a "waiting for the wind to come" edge of the industry. On the one hand, it spans across the new energy vehicles, chemical industry, smelting (industrial base), from industrial applications back to the basic industry, in the "border zone"; on the other hand, it is not popular for the time being, because of the loss of money.
That's why the industry is waiting for the "wind to blow" -- the scale of used batteries is large enough, the recycling technology is mature enough not to cause additional environmental burden, and the revenue covers the cost of the recycling process.
Reuse is not the endgame
Pure electric products have been on the market for more than a decade, but by 2015, cumulative global sales were only 350,000 units. Battery options varied (lead-acid in the early days, followed by nickel-metal hydride, lithium cobaltate, lithium manganese, and lithium iron phosphate), and, more critically, data tracking systems were not in place. The latter were used to monitor the stage of the power battery in its full life cycle. This led to high costs for recycling and reuse.
Because of scale and technology, it is currently difficult to make a profit on the battery recycling ecosystem. Who will bear the shortfall? Either the government will provide subsidies, or manufacturers or suppliers will add a "used battery disposal fee" to the selling price of the vehicle. If consumers pay the bill, it will be a blow to new energy consumption.
The so-called "secondary utilization" of the direction, roughly as a fixed energy storage unit for households, public **** infrastructure wind (wind + solar) temporary energy storage.
However, the secondary utilization only postpones the disassembly, but can not be avoided. Power battery capacity fell to 80%, will enter the "second life", when the remaining 40% capacity, dismantling and recycling will be inevitable. For the same reason, although countries around the world are seeking to establish a lithium battery as the core of the recycling system, but no country has established a traceable, environmentally friendly, reduced, profitable battery recycling system.
The Toyota system
But that doesn't mean there's no precedent. Starting in the 1990s, Toyota developed hybrid products that began to be sold globally. In 2007, Toyota's HEV global cumulative sales of 1 million units, in 2017 exceeded 10 million units, as of the end of July this year global cumulative sales of 16 million units, of which 1 million units sold in China. Although China's sales are growing rapidly, it is not a major recycling market in terms of early cumulative volume. The main recycling markets for Toyota HEV batteries are still the United States, Japan and Europe. Currently Toyota's annual sales of hybrid vehicles is about 1.5 million units, of which the U.S. sales range of 250,000-300,000 units, Europe 300,000-400,000 units, and the Japanese mainland stabilized at about 650,000 units.
However, the HEV batteries are nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and are relatively small in size and capacity (1KWh). Toyota started a nickel-metal hydride battery recycling program in 1998, and established a recycling guide in 2009, committing to 100% recycling. By 2013, it began to experiment with laddering utilization.
Toyota waited for dealer stores to accumulate a sufficient number of batteries and then took back the old batteries through trade-ins. Compared with lithium batteries, old nickel-metal hydride batteries are less of a safety issue to accumulate. This does not hold true for today's lithium batteries, which are often hundreds or thousands of individual units.
Toyota tests and evaluates the old batteries it receives and categorizes them as entering the "maintenance system," recycling and dismantling for scrap.
The term "maintenance system" is a bit confusing. Although the overall performance of some batteries does not meet the requirements of use, but only a few individual indicators are poor, replaced and reassembled into a new PACK.
There have not been too many large-scale projects so far. One of the few worth boasting about is Toyota's provision of the Yellowstone Park facility's energy storage system.
Dismantling for end-of-life, on the other hand, runs into more environmental challenges, and in 2012 Toyota partnered with Nippon Heavy Chemical Industries to claim it could recycle 80 percent of the metal (mostly nickel).
In Europe, Toyota partnered with France's SNAM and Belgium's Umicore Group, with the latter two recycling metals from lithium and nickel-metal hydride batteries.
Apparently, Toyota doesn't want to deal with pesky electrolytes in Europe, so it has to draw on the industrial systems of local companies.
The trouble lies in the electrolyte
The trouble arises when batteries come to the point of being dismantled and recycled. The main recycling value is concentrated in the battery's positive electrode (metal salts) and case (typically aluminum alloy). The negative electrode (graphite) is too cheap to be worth recycling, fortunately graphite does not pollute the environment. The diaphragm is a polymer material, cheap and not easy to recycle, not too polluting, just not easy to degrade. The biggest trouble lies in the electrolyte, basically no recycling value, and can not be discarded, the treatment process still produces wastewater, exhaust and waste, there is no economic return, but must be reduced and harmless.
Electrolyte treatment, generally through mechanical methods first drain, press, collected, and then the exhaust gas into the wastewater absorption, and then oxidation of wastewater treatment, so that its "biochemical properties" (to achieve a harmless degradation of the natural environment), and then through the precipitation reaction to remove the precipitate, with activated carbon, reverse osmosis membrane formation Adsorption - ultrafiltration combination technology, remove organic pollutants, to achieve the standard of water.
It should be noted that this is only a description of the principle, the specific treatment method is very complex. Electrolyte recycling is the part where patents are concentrated, which is both difficult and more energy/resource consuming, yet unprofitable. Most OEMs have neither the ability nor the will to set up such a specialized treatment process for electrolytes. It makes more sense to entrust it to a specialized manufacturer and let a specialized company do specialized things.
"Collaborative organization" and 4R, who can lead
Broadly speaking, Japan's waste recycling system is the most complete in the world. In terms of power battery recycling, it is business-led, utilizing a service network of retailers, car dealers or gas stations to recycle used batteries from consumers, with the recycling route being the opposite of the sales route. As in China, the government clearly stipulates that manufacturers are the main body responsible for battery recycling. The government provides appropriate subsidies to increase the incentive to recycle.
Nissan's joint venture with Sumitomo, along with Sharp and NEC, are all seeking to "reuse" power batteries for wind energy storage. Nissan launched a solar street lights, retired batteries and street lights connected to photovoltaic panels, energy storage during the day, street lights at night to release lighting, can be run in isolation, do not rely on the grid, suitable for natural disasters under the emergency power supply. Considering that Japan is a typhoon-and-earthquake-prone country, it makes sense to do so.
Honda also claimed to start the battery "regeneration program", also has a secondary use of the plan. The difference is that Honda plans to dismantle the used batteries themselves to extract cobalt, nickel and other metals. But there is no mention of the electrolyte and other processing.
However, Honda is also working with SNAM, where the treatment process and capacity, is likely to be provided by the latter.
In September 2018, Toyota, Nissan and others jointly launched a retired battery recycling program, brokered by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Each company had its own recycling program in place, some of which had been in place for years, so why coordinate a joint effort within the framework of the Japan Manufacturers' Association (JMA)?
The official line is "to realize sustainable development," which implies that each of them is likely to lose money and will not be able to sustain itself in the long run.
The major manufacturers **** together funded the establishment of the Japan Automotive Recycling Collaborative, headquartered in Tokyo, which set up seven factories across Japan, as well as more battery recycling sites.
From now on, OEMs will be able to hand over their old batteries to the collaborative organization for disposal, with the former paying a proportional disposal fee to the latter.
Also in 2018, Nissan's joint venture with Sumitomo, 4R Energy, was established as Japan's first factory specializing in lithium battery recycling. However, we have yet to hear of any business dealings between the Japan Automotive Recycling Organization and 4R, which was established a few months earlier. The former's strength is its extensive recycling system, while the latter is a standard commercial operation that makes real money from lithium battery recycling. Neither of them has explained to the public what to do with the electrolyte that can't make money but can't be avoided.
Currently, pure electric products have been discharged globally, and with the large volume of pure electric PACKs and high recycling potential, it is only a matter of time before the accumulated volume catches up with the small batteries of HEVs and PHEVs. However, the power battery recycling in 2019 and 2020 on a global scale is going low. Two reasons for this: first, the new generation of lithium battery technology is more advanced and longer-lasting; second, most EV products are still in the early and middle stages of their life cycle, and have not yet reached the stage of gradient utilization, let alone end-of-life treatment. And after 2023, it is expected that the scale of recycling will exceed 100GWh, and only then can we really establish a relatively perfect recycling system.
Japan's recycling system is in the transition from NiMH to Li-ion batteries. It started earlier, has the most complete structure, and the technology is also in a slightly leading position (in fact, it is difficult to assess), the practicality has been verified, but the only problem is the scale. Japan's recycling experience, in the end, the value of geometry, can be used for large-scale lithium battery recycling system, will be verified before 2023. (Article / "car people" Huang Yaopeng, part of the picture source network) Copyright Notice This article is an exclusive original manuscript of "car people", copyright "car people" all rights reserved.
This article comes from the author of Automobile People, and does not represent the viewpoint position of Automobile People.