-Why does the US Department of Energy pay attention to the recycling of waste lithium batteries at this time

Why does the US Department of Energy pay attention to the recycling of waste lithium batteries at this time
author:enerbyte source:本站 click641 Release date: 2022-10-27 09:42:44
abstract:
Since the beginning of commercialization in the early 1990s, lithium ion batteries have been used more and more widely. Today, lithium-ion batteries are almost everywhere, from laptops and mobile phones to electric vehicles and energy storage devices. After reaching the service life of the battery,...

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Since the beginning of commercialization in the early 1990s, lithium ion batteries have been used more and more widely. Today, lithium-ion batteries are almost everywhere, from laptops and mobile phones to electric vehicles and energy storage devices. After reaching the service life of the battery, the number of discarded lithium ion batteries has increased at an alarming rate. It is predicted that by 2030, the world's discarded lithium ion batteries will reach more than 11 million tons.

February 18 is the National Battery Day in the United States. Many Americans will replace their old batteries at home and send them to the recycling center. To celebrate this unofficial festival, the US Department of Energy announced that the construction of the battery recycling research and development center of Argonne National Laboratory was officially launched, and the lithium ion battery recycling award project was launched to promote the recycling of key materials in lithium based batteries. Why did the United States choose to recycle waste lithium-ion batteries at this time?

The batteries of American electric vehicles will be retired soon, and the recovery rate of waste batteries is insufficient.

At present, the recycling rate of waste lithium-ion batteries in the United States is less than 5%. If this problem cannot be effectively solved, it will have a negative impact on people's health and the natural ecological environment. Therefore, taking the opportunity of American Battery Day, the US Department of Energy set up a battery recycling research and development center in Argonne National Laboratory, aiming to develop a cost-effective recycling process to recover as much valuable materials as possible, such as lithium and cobalt, from waste lithium-ion batteries. The launch of the lithium-ion battery recycling award aims to encourage American enterprises to find innovative solutions for the collection, storage, transportation and ultimate recycling of waste lithium-ion batteries. The Department of Energy will provide a total of $5.5 million for the award.

The Ministry of Energy hopes to promote the development of new technologies through the R&D center and recycling awards, and finally achieve the goal of recycling 90% of key materials from waste batteries, so as to reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign countries in lithium, cobalt and other key battery materials.

In view of the rising demand for lithium battery raw materials in the world, in order to cope with the risk of potential supply shortage, the U.S. government is urged to develop the technology of recycling batteries. Through recycling lithium batteries from electric vehicles, mobile phones and other devices, it is hoped that a more stable and reliable source of raw materials can be obtained.

The US Department of Energy announced that, in consideration of national security, it would spend 15 million US dollars to launch a three-year research and development program at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. This research project will combine the efforts of Argonne, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and several universities to jointly develop the latest technology, hoping to catch up with China's strength in manufacturing and recycling lithium batteries.

Simmons, an official of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office of the US Department of Energy, said that the US relied on other countries to supply lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and other metals as well as battery products, which was not conducive to national security, because some of these source countries were not close allies.

Lithium salt is mainly produced in a few South American, African countries and Australia, while cobalt ore is mostly from Congo. China, which has recently had a tense trade relationship with the United States, is an important manufacturing town of lithium batteries. China has actively recycled batteries to obtain lithium raw materials, reducing its dependence on lithium raw materials imports.

The demand for lithium batteries continues to increase, which is also the reason why the US government invests in research and development of recycling technology. Jeff Spangenberg, director of ReCell Center, the latest recycling center established by the Ministry of Energy, said that American car factories will invest heavily in building electric vehicles in the next ten years. In addition, the battery of electric vehicles is close to its service life, so the Department of Energy believes that it is now the time to start battery recycling.

"We have done a lot of analysis," said Spengenberg. "If we don't recycle, our materials will be used up.". If we can get a stable supply of recycled materials, this will greatly reduce the risk.

Hans Eric Melin, employed by CreationInn and a researcher in the lithium battery industry, said that recycling lithium batteries in the United States is really unreasonable. She said: These materials cannot be used locally unless you want to sell them to China, where is the battery production place. China's battery recycling layout is early, and it is difficult for the United States to enter

In terms of battery recycling, China is ahead of the United States.

In order to solve the problem of power battery recycling for new energy vehicles, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with relevant departments, organized China Tower Co., Ltd. and other companies to carry out cascade utilization of power batteries in 2018, play the role of the main channel for power battery recycling, and strengthen innovation in business model construction, key technology research and development, standard specification research, and information platform construction.

For a long time, the tower company's base station backup power mainly uses lead-acid batteries, and about 100000 tons of lead-acid batteries are purchased every year. Since 2015, the iron tower company has successively carried out the test of replacing lead-acid batteries with batteries in more than 3000 base stations in 12 provinces and cities, which fully verified the safety and technical and economic feasibility of using batteries in echelon.

Recently, the iron tower company announced that it would stop purchasing lead-acid batteries and vigorously promote the cascade utilization of lithium batteries. The tower company has accelerated the demonstration and promotion of cascade utilization of base stations. In 2018, it stopped purchasing lead-acid batteries and uniformly purchased cascade utilization batteries. By the end of 2018, about 1.5 GWh of cascade batteries had been used in about 120000 base stations in 31 provinces and cities across the country, replacing about 45000 tons of lead-acid batteries. The iron tower company cooperates with 11 automobile manufacturers such as FAW and SAIC Group to plan and build recycling channels, and takes the lead in Shanghai, Hubei, Guangdong and other regions; Cooperate with recycling enterprises to optimize the recycling process of retired power battery batteries, and ensure the centralized recycling and harmless disposal of scrapped batteries for cascade use.

In addition, the iron tower company promoted the cooperation between production, teaching, research and application, led the industry to break through a batch of key technologies for echelon utilization, such as battery grouping and comprehensive capacity evaluation, unified the communication interface and protocol requirements of the battery management system, and promoted the intelligence and standardization of echelon utilization. The enterprise has formed relevant technical specifications such as Technical Specifications for Cascade Battery Products, Requirements for Cascade Battery Packaging, Transportation and Storage Management and Control, and has taken the lead in formulating the industry standard Technical Requirements and Test Methods for Cascade Utilization of Vehicle Power Batteries by Communication Base Stations, filling the gap in the technical specifications for cascade utilization in the domestic communication industry, and leading the technological progress in cascade utilization.

The iron tower company has played an important exemplary and leading role. According to the planning of the Iron Tower Company, in 2019, it will continue to expand the scale of the use of batteries for echelon utilization. It is estimated that about 5GWh of batteries will be used for echelon utilization, about 150000 tons of lead-acid batteries will be replaced, and more than 50000 tons of retired power batteries will be consumed. 150 recycling service outlets were built in 17 provinces, cities and regions, and multiple application models such as comprehensive backup power supply solutions were developed, breaking through a number of key common technologies such as residual value assessment and rapid detection, and improving and optimizing the technical standard and specification system.

In fact, in addition to China's iron tower, there are also many domestic companies related to the lithium battery industry chain that have already laid out the recycling of batteries. Therefore, if the United States intends to sell recycled raw materials to China, it may be a little difficult.

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