In terms of battery management policies, the policies of developed countries can be summarized into two categories.
The first category is for ordinary dry batteries. Governments require manufacturers to gradually reduce the amount of mercury in batteries, eventually banning the addition of mercury to batteries. This requirement is part of a phase-out of all mercury-containing products and processes, not just for the battery industry. Almost all developed countries now ban the addition of mercury to batteries.
The second type of policy is for rechargeable batteries. Legislation was passed requiring manufacturers to phase out cadmium-containing batteries. At present, nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium batteries are gradually replacing nickel-cadmium batteries. Electronic manufacturers' associations in some countries have carried out recycling of rechargeable batteries, and the effect is also relatively significant. This is mainly because the total consumption of rechargeable batteries is relatively small (compared with ordinary dry batteries), the scope of application is small, easy to collect by way of trade-in, and the recycling value is high, so this kind of waste battery collection is easier.
References:
Since the first chemical power voltaic batteries have been introduced, it has been two centuries, in which the battery has made a great contribution to our mankind, especially since the 70s of this century. More and more cell phones, beepers, laptops and other electronic products into the daily lives of consumers, so that the battery this family has gained great development, but everything has its disadvantages, a large number of batteries discarded to the human environment brought about by the enormous pollution, according to the test a button battery can pollute 600,000 liters of water, a person's whole life can not be finished drinking a section of No. 1 batteries rotting in the ground, can make a square meter of land lost! Use value, how shocking figures ah, so our group chose this topic, I hope to be able to make a further understanding of this, so as to waste battery recycling to do what we can, for our environmental cause to contribute to a their own strength.
Harmfulness of batteries
All things are difficult at the beginning, in the face of such a large subject, where should we start the study? The three of us unanimously thought of starting from the harmful effects of batteries. People say that waste batteries are harmful, so is not all waste batteries are harmful? Batteries are harmful and where to show it To this end, we went online to check the relevant information, and came to the following conclusions:
①. Not all waste batteries are dangerous goods, touch and can not be touched, different types of batteries, pollution of the environment is also a big difference, should be treated differently, some batteries such as alkaline dry batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries will not cause serious harm to the environment, but some batteries such as nickel-cadmium batteries contain hazardous substances into the environment for a long period of time, may be a direct threat to the health of the people.
②. Battery pollution with the production of how much waste, centralized production, decentralized pollution; short-term use, the characteristics of long-term pollution, battery pollution is due to the battery contains the following heavy metals :
Lead: neurological (neurasthenia, numbness of the hands and feet), digestive system (indigestion, abdominal cramps), blood poisoning and other lesions.
Mercury: Altered mental status is a major symptom of mercury poisoning. A rapid pulse, muscle tremors, oral and digestive lesions. Minamata disease in Japan is a typical example of mercury poisoning.
Cadmium and manganese: mainly affect the nervous system. Cadmium poisoning patients with pain in the hands and feet, all parts of the body are prone to fracture, commonly known as "pain pain disease"
③ waste batteries to pollute the environment through:
As the saying goes: Illness enters by the mouth, waste batteries are the same. We have analyzed a variety of battery pollution process, is no more than the following kinds, and these elements have been sealed in the battery shell inside, and will not have an impact on the environment. It is after long-term mechanical wear and corrosion, making the internal heavy metals and acids and alkalis leak out into the soil or water, and then through various ways into the human food chain, thus endangering human health.
These processes are briefly described as follows:
Battery→soil→microorganisms→animal cycle
Dust→crops→food→human body→nervous→sedimentation
Other: water→plants→food→digestion
The heavy metals that the organisms ingested from the environment can be biomagnified in the food chain and enriched in thousands and thousands of levels in the higher organisms. Then it enters the human body through food and accumulates in certain organs, causing chronic poisoning.
4 other manifestations of the harm of waste batteries:
So, how waste batteries into the environment, at present, China has not carried out the classification of garbage recycling, the current treatment of domestic waste is mainly sanitary landfills, composting and incineration in three ways, mixed into the waste of domestic waste waste of waste batteries in the three process of pollution is reflected in the role of:
Landfill: the waste batteries heavy metals through leaching to pollute water bodies and the environment, and then through the leaching effect. Through the leaching effect of pollution of water and soil. (Mainly dry batteries)
Incineration: waste batteries at high temperatures, corrosion of equipment, some heavy metals in the incinerator volatilization in the fly ash, resulting in atmospheric pollution, the bottom of the incinerator accumulation of heavy metals to the generation of ash pollution.
Composting: the high content of heavy metals in waste batteries, resulting in a decline in the quality of compost.
Two, the current situation of battery recycling:
The feasibility of recycling:
Through the above research, we have a deeper understanding of the harmful effects of batteries since the waste batteries on human beings, on the environment has such a great harm, then the recycling of waste batteries has become a very necessary thing. In fact, waste batteries in fact, not at all "waste", waste batteries in the paid use of 95% of the material can be recycled, which contains a large number of non-ferrous metals, and non-ferrous metals is a non-renewable resource on the planet, recycling can produce a certain economic value, the realization of resources. To this end, we looked for some information on the recycling of waste batteries, and this analysis, summarized.
From the online information:
According to incomplete statistics, the national annual production of batteries reached 1.5 billion, these batteries contain zinc skin 38,200 tons of copper cap 600 tons, 29,600 tons of iron, 2.48 tons of mercury and so on. Such as the rapid development of foreign recycled lead industry, 55% of the existing lead production from recycled lead. And recycled lead industry, the recycling of waste lead storage batteries occupy a large proportion of 100 kg of waste lead storage batteries can be recycled 50-60 kg of lead. For cadmium-containing batteries recycling, foreign countries have more mature technology, processing 100 kg of cadmium-containing batteries can be recovered about 20 kg of cadmium metal. For mercury-containing batteries are mainly used in environmentally sound means of treatment to prevent pollution of the environment.
China's battery production and consumption of large countries, last year's battery production and consumption of up to 14 billion, accounting for the world's total amount of 1 / 3. For various reasons, China's current environmental management of waste batteries is basically in the blank, tens of billions of batteries at the end of each year, most of the batteries are not recycled and disposed of at will, on the ecological environment and public health poses a potential threat. It seems that our country in the waste battery recycling work done is far from enough, since the lack of experience, we must know how to learn from others, for which we have checked some foreign information on battery recycling.
2. Battery recycling in foreign countries:
①Western Europe
Many countries not only in the store, but also directly in the street are equipped with special waste battery recycling box, will collect the waste battery first with a special sieve screened out of those with the language of clocks and watches, calculators and other small electronic instruments button batteries, which generally contain mercury, can be extracted out of mercury to be used. Then manually sort out the nickel-cadmium battery batteries, a factory in France to extract nickel and cadmium, and then the nickel used in steelmaking, cadmium is re-used in the production of batteries.
② United States
The United States is the most detailed legislation in the environmental management of waste batteries in a country, not only the establishment of a comprehensive waste battery recycling system, but also the establishment of a number of waste battery treatment plants, while unremittingly to the public to publicize and educate the public to consciously support and cooperate with the recycling of waste batteries.
③Switzerland:
Switzerland has two specialized processing and utilization of old batteries in the factory, Barticle company to take the method is the old battery grinding, and then sent to the furnace heating, which can be extracted volatile mercury, higher temperature zinc is also evaporated, it is also a precious metal. Iron and manganese are fused together to make the manganese-iron alloy needed to make steel. The plant can process 2,000 tons of waste batteries a year, yielding 780 tons of ferromanganese alloy, 400 tons of zinc alloy and 3 tons of mercury. Another factory extracts iron directly from the batteries and sells the mixture of manganese oxide, zinc oxide, copper oxide and nickel oxide as metal scrap.
However, the thermal treatment method is more expensive, Switzerland also stipulates that each battery buyer is charged a small amount of waste battery processing special fee, the country of Magdeburg near the suburbs are building a "wet processing" device, where in addition to lead batteries, all types of batteries are dissolved in sulfuric acid, and then with the help of ionic resin from the solution to extract a variety of metals, with this way to get the raw material than the thermal treatment of the method of pure, and therefore sold at a higher price on the market. The raw materials obtained in this way are purer than those obtained by heat treatment, so they are sold at a higher price on the market, and 95% of the various substances contained in the batteries can be extracted. Wet treatment eliminates the need for sorting (which is a manual process that increases costs). The Magdeburg plant, which has a capacity of 7,500 tons per year, is slightly more expensive than landfills, but valuable materials are not thrown away and do not pollute the environment.
④Germany:
In Germany, waste batteries have been all collected, categorized treatment and disposal. The government has legislated, clearly stipulated: for the toxicity of lead-acid batteries, mercury-containing batteries, nickel cadmium batteries must be marked with recycling mark; battery manufacturers and distributors must collect all waste batteries; distributors must be marked and unmarked batteries to be categorized; battery manufacturers must be set up to regenerate battery recycling and treatment facilities; all waste batteries must be given priority to recycling, for the non-recyclable batteries to be classified according to waste management. Non-renewable batteries should be properly disposed of in accordance with the waste management law; in the production of batteries, to further reduce the heavy metal content of batteries, in particular to reduce the mercury content of alkaline manganese batteries, and actively develop new products that are less harmful to the environment.
Germany Alter developed the vacuum heat treatment method is cheap, but this first need to be sorted out in the waste battery nickel-cadmium batteries, waste batteries heated in a vacuum, in which the mercury quickly evaporated, it can be recycled, and then the remaining raw materials grinding, with magnets to extract iron metal, and then from the remaining powder to extract nickel and manganese. The cost of this process is less than 1,500 marks per ton of waste batteries.
⑤Japan
Primary batteries in Japan are completely mercury-free, meaning that the environmental impact of primary batteries has been reduced to a very small amount. Currently, 84% of all batteries in Japan are recycled, and recycling is done by handing out recycling cartons and bags in over 20,000 stores, with corresponding lottery tours. There are billboards in front of stores advertising recycling, and the Japanese have a strong sense of publicity and environmental protection on their own.
From the above information, China's battery recycling has indeed lagged behind the developed countries by a large margin. The reasons for this are manifold. First, in the technical level, the current domestic only in the scientific research and experimental stage, there are a few factories to carry out the reuse of waste batteries, but the technology is not yet mature. Therefore, our country should research and develop the resourcefulness of batteries as soon as possible, harmless treatment technology, if necessary, should be introduced from abroad advanced and mature technology. Secondly, the citizens' environmental protection consciousness is not strong, and the phenomenon of randomly discarding waste batteries is relatively serious, resulting in the waste of resources and environmental pollution. In this regard, the citizens of developed countries do a better job, therefore, China should do a good job of publicity, increase the recycling of waste batteries, because only a large amount of waste battery recycling, factories have a constant flow of sufficient raw materials, waste battery regeneration and processing in order to be on a large scale, the enterprise can have economic benefits.
3. China's national and urban measures:
In the face of China's battery pollution of the serious situation, our government did not sit idly by, but has taken a series of strong measures. It is understood that the State Economic and Trade Commission, the State Environmental Protection Administration, the State Bureau of Technical Supervision and other nine ministries and commissions in 1997 issued a "notice on the limitation of mercury content in battery products". The "Notice" says: "First of all, to realize the low mercury, and ultimately to achieve mercury-free." The notice requires: "Since January 1, 2001, prohibit the domestic production of all types of mercury content greater than 0.025% of the weight of the battery battery; from January 1, 2001 onwards, all domestic and foreign battery products into the domestic market, the mercury content of the battery in the single battery need to be marked (for example, with 'low mercury' or 'mercury-free' indicated), not marked mercury content of batteries are not allowed to enter the market; from January 1, 2002 onwards, the mercury content of the battery is not allowed to enter the market; from January 1, 2001 onwards, the mercury content of battery products is not allowed to enter the market; from January 1, 2001 onwards, the mercury content of battery products is not permitted to enter the market; from January 1, 2001 onwards, the mercury content of battery products is not allowed to enter the market. Since January 1, 2002, it is prohibited to distribute in the domestic market batteries with mercury content greater than 0.025% of the weight of the battery; since January 1, 2005, it is prohibited to produce alkaline zinc-manganese batteries with mercury content greater than 0.0001% of the weight of the battery in the country; since January 1, 2006, it is prohibited to distribute alkaline zinc-manganese batteries with mercury content greater than 0.0001% of the weight of the battery in the country. "
At present, the country has more than a dozen battery factory can produce mercury-free environmentally friendly batteries, such as Fujian Nanfu Battery Factory production of Nanfu brand batteries, in the silver (Ningbo) Battery Company, the production of Double Deer brand batteries, etc., but there are still 80% of manufacturers are still waiting for the wait and see what happens in this regard, there is no progress. The State Environmental Protection Administration, the State Bureau of Technical Supervision, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and other law enforcement agencies are prepared to take joint action to increase law enforcement supervision.
China's recycling work in some big cities:
In the tide of battery recycling, some coastal cities to act earlier, do better. April 1998, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sanitation set up a "useful garbage recycling centers," specifically responsible for the recycling of waste batteries, they are in the primary and secondary schools, institutions, stores, restaurants to set up more than 300 recycling points, and regularly send cars to all points of recycling waste batteries. In 1998 **** recycled 7 tons, this year is expected to recover 30 tons.
4. Recycling of different types of batteries:
In fact, as mentioned above, different types of batteries have different levels of pollution, and their recycling situation is naturally different. Rechargeable batteries contain some of the more valuable metals such as nickel, lithium, lead, cadmium, etc., the recycling value is higher, and dry batteries contain things that are not valuable, the use of value is not great, therefore, the recycling of waste dry batteries is not economically beneficial. At present, most of the waste rechargeable batteries abroad for recycling, and for the waste of dry batteries, the main method currently adopted is to centralize after the recovery of landfill storage. As for the dry battery treatment plant, there are only two in the world, one in Japan and one in Switzerland. The plant in Hokkaido, Japan, mainly extracts zinc, copper, manganese and other metals from used batteries, and because of the poor economic performance, the environmental protection department has given the plant a subsidy of 80 yen for every kilogram of waste batteries it handles.
Lead storage batteries is the battery recycling in the force, China's limited lead ore resources, recycled lead can save energy, recycled lead production costs than the primary lead 38% lower. China's recycled lead industry in the 1950s, but at first failed to attract the attention of the relevant departments, the annual output of recycled lead has been hovering in the thousands of tons, until 1990 only reached 28,200 tons. In the past ten years, the recycled lead industry has made remarkable progress, the rapid growth of production, has initially formed an independent industry, the output reached 95,000 tons in 1994, is the rapid take-off of the symbol of the year. Since then, the annual output of more than 100,000 tons in 1997 amounted to 123,700 tons, 4.4 times as much as in 1990, with an average annual growth rate of 20.3%, the annual output of recycled lead accounted for about 20% of the total amount of lead, (see Table 1).
Table 1 China's production of refined and recycled lead in recent years Unit: 10,000 tons
Year
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
Average annual growth
The production of recycled lead accounted for about 20% of the total lead. Average annual growth
Total refined lead production
29.65
30.45
36.60
41.19
46.79
60.79
70.62
70.75
13.20%
Total recycled lead production
1993
1994
1994
1995
1996
1997
Total recycled lead production
2.82
4.63
4.83
4.43
9.50
17.53
14.36
12.37
23.50%
Percentage of recycled lead
< p>9.51%15.21%
13.20%
10.76%
20.30%
28.84%
20.33%
17.48%
But in terms of the overall level of regenerated lead, the number of enterprises is large, small scale, high energy consumption, pollution, backward technology. Heavy pollution, backward technology, low metal recovery and comprehensive utilization rate. In particular, our legislation is lagging behind, the production and sales of enterprises are not standardized, low-level repeated construction is serious. China's waste lead batteries recycled lead factory nearly 300, production capacity from dozens of tons to thousands of tons, more than 20,000 tons of only a handful of the overall level of only equivalent to the international level of the 1960s.
5. Public Awareness
Now let's take a look around us, in the end, how much people know about waste batteries We decided to start the investigation from the people around us, so we made in the scope of the school on the awareness of the students of waste battery recycling survey, the object of this survey for the high school freshman and sophomore part of the students, *** received 217 questionnaires, of which 213 questionnaires, statistical data on the waste battery recycling awareness. 213 questionnaires, statistical data obtained in Table 2:
Table 2 waste battery recycling survey paper statistics
No.
Survey content
Choices
Number of people
Percentage
1
Whether the use of small electrical appliances, such as flashlights, Walkman, CD players, repeater, etc.
A is the use of small electric appliances, such as flashlight, Walkman, CD player, repeater, etc.
A is a good idea, but it's not the only thing.
A Yes
191
89.7%
B No
22
10.3%
2
Whether you use ordinary batteries or rechargeable batteries.
A Regular batteries
172
80.8%
B Rechargeable batteries
41
19.2%
3
Approximately how many batteries are sacrificed for you each week
A 1-2
153
71.8%
B 3-4 cells
38
17.8%
C 5-6 cells
4
1.9%
D More than 6 cells
18
8.5%
4
How do you dispose of your used batteries
A Throw it in the trash can
117
55.0%
B Give it to the life committee
48
22.5%
C Throw it away casually
48
22.5%
5
Your knowledge of the hazards of waste batteries
A No Clearly
24
11.3%
B Not really
63
29.5%
C Can list a few
99
46.5%
D Very clearly
27
12.7%
6
Your perception of the school life department's activities to collect waste batteries
A Indifferent
29
13.6%
B Nothing to worry about
26
12.2%
C It's time to do it
74
34.7%
D Think it's Very good
85
39.9%
Analysis of the above data shows that more than 70% of the students use 1-2 batteries a week, and even some students use more than six batteries a week, waste batteries have a very wide range of sources, but the students of waste battery recycling awareness is relatively weak, the vast majority of the students threw the batteries in the trash can or thrown away, the battery is not enough to understand the hazards, reuse awareness is not strong. Recycling awareness is not strong, the hazards of waste batteries is very clear to less than 15% of students, so it is necessary to carry out waste batteries and environmental protection in the campus publicity.
6 Degree of media attention
First, let's take a look at the following two reports:
①According to the Zhengzhou Daily, two college students in Zhengzhou saw a report from the Internet: "The German old lady traveling in China for a few days, due to the failure to find the waste battery recycling station, had to bring some waste batteries back to the country". The two students, who know more about environmental protection and patriotism, were y moved by the report. They set up an environmental protection association specializing in the recycling of waste batteries, and called on students around them to respond, and the team continues to grow. Now there are more than 200 college students participating.
②Wuxi Daily reported that 6-year-old Beijing girl Wang Junjing "small people do big things," in order to publicize the harm of waste batteries on the environment, she was accompanied by her father for 50 days through Yunnan-Tibet, Tibet Highway, a journey of more than 17,000 kilometers, picking up more than a thousand pieces of waste batteries on the way.
This shows that the degree of media attention is still relatively high, people's awareness of environmental protection is gradually increasing, but also let us see the dawn of waste battery recycling.
Three, waste battery recycling specific recommendations:
For the above situation, and combined with China's vast territory of the reality of the people, we put forward the following recommendations on waste battery recycling:
1. Government legislation, from the legal guarantee of the continuity of this work. Order the environmental protection department of the waste battery recovery, and then refine the use of substances, so that the harmless treatment.
2. To units (such as institutions, troops, schools, factories, stores, hotels, restaurants, hotels, street offices, property district level) as the center of the administrative system to establish a waste battery recycling network.
3. Trade unions, youth groups, student unions, women's associations and other organizations, calling on their members to actively participate in the recovery of waste batteries in action.
4. Wide-ranging social publicity to increase civic awareness. It is necessary to increase the content of waste battery recycling and environmental protection in school teaching.
5. A special reward and punishment system for recycling waste batteries.
6. Public **** places, especially in large shopping malls, can set up a special recycling counter.
Four, the direction of the development of the battery
Waste battery recycling and disposal is currently the focus of attention, the seriousness of its pollution is also y worried about, so can we fundamentally reduce the harm it does, the battery and the development of the direction of what it is In this regard, we have been in the contact with Mr. Wang visited the Ningbo Zhongyin Battery Factory in the hope of learning about the information. The factory's technical section of the Xie section chief warmly received us, and answered our questions Let us know that the current direction of development of the battery is mainly to the direction of environmentally friendly battery development, embodied in:
Battery materials harmless, non-polluting, mercury-free.
Development of rechargeable battery research to reduce the waste battery pollution of the ecological environment.
She introduced us to the development of several new types of batteries:
(1) rechargeable nickel-metal hydride batteries: composed of nickel and rare earths, does not contain mercury. Can be continuously discharged 500 times, low charging costs.
(2) lithium batteries: lithium as the negative electrode, non-aqueous organic solvents and inorganic solvents as solvents, lithium salt as the electrolyte.
(3) sodium-sulfur battery: liquid electrode and solid electrolyte composition, the negative active material for the molten sodium metal, positive active material for the sodium polysulfide salt.
(4)Fuel cell: using fuel as negative electrode, high conversion rate, no discharge of harmful substances, low noise, can be a large amount of power supply.
A whole series of new batteries to see us dazzled, we are convinced that: through the efforts of many people *** with the battery and the environment can certainly *** with a better tomorrow.
Afterword: Our small subject research will be nearly finished, nearly two months of research, let us benefit a lot. In these two months, we have learned a lot of things, not only waste batteries, but more importantly, we learned how to solve the initial difficulties. Like other groups, in the research process, we also encountered many difficulties, such as: information and chaos, how to organize, just started to write the paper, due to inexperience, we just find the information mechanically put together although there are 18 pages of jokes such as "our delegation in Japan to learn the technology of waste battery treatment," and so on, and later in the direction of Mr. Wang, the paper should be changed, the deletion of the place without mercy to change, the deletion of the place without mercy to delete. The deletion of the place to be deleted without mercy, more added to their own feelings and ideas in the research process, before the completion of the present paper. Perhaps the paper still has many shortcomings, but looking at the fruits of their labor for two months, we are happy now, we look forward to the future, may our first small subject research can be drawn to a successful conclusion.