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li yan, professor and doctoral supervisor at the school of environment, renmin university of china

"the lifespan of lithium batteries is actually much shorter than that of new energy vehicles, with an average lifespan of only 5 to 8 years. after the power batteries of new energy vehicles are scrapped, how will they be handled and used efficiently? this is something we must plan in advance and plan before we act." on september 2, the 2024 world power battery conference power battery quality improvement special meeting was held in yibin. li yan, professor and doctoral supervisor at the school of environment of renmin university of china, shared his latest thoughts on "automotive battery recycling policies and technologies."

at present, the recycling rate of power batteries is low. what is the biggest difficulty? li yan told the reporter of "daily economic news" that not only the batteries of electric vehicles, but also the biggest problem of what we call circular economy now is "how to recycle" and recycle. "from resources to production and then to consumption, we call it forward logistics, which is equivalent to the process of breaking the whole into parts, but recycling and reuse is equivalent to gathering the parts into a whole, which needs to be continuously returned from the consumer end. there is a cost to return. how to smooth the reverse logistics channel and reduce the cost may be the biggest problem now."

at the same time, she believes that in theory, the recycling of power batteries should improve the extended producer responsibility system, and automobile companies should assume corresponding recycling responsibilities for used power batteries, including thinking about "how to make it more recyclable" during the battery design process. the battery's materials and structure should be considered for disassembly from the beginning of the design.

the recycling rate of power batteries needs to be improved urgently

"there are mainly two types of power batteries for new energy vehicles: one is the ternary lithium battery that needs to be recycled directly, and the other is the lithium iron phosphate battery that can be utilized in a cascade manner, that is, when the efficiency drops below 80%, it can be used as other energy storage or other power sources." in li yan's view, the recycling paths of the two are not exactly the same. from the perspective of the entire recycling industry chain in the future, in addition to cascade utilization, recycling and classification are also required in the end. some will become waste materials, and some will be reused back into new battery fields as part of new power batteries.

there is no time to waste in improving the recycling rate of power batteries. according to the new eu battery law, battery carbon footprint rating labels must be affixed from august 18, 2026, and battery products that exceed the carbon footprint threshold will be banned from entering the eu market from february 18, 2028. li yan believes that eu regulations can be regarded as a weather vane, and the united states, south korea, and japan may also formulate corresponding regulations based on this. "if they cannot be adjusted in time, it may have an impact and impact on the export of new energy vehicles in the future."

"looking at the different battery carbon footprints in china and other regions, ours is actually on the higher side. this is related to our primary energy structure." li yan said that the eu requires that by 2035 all batteries must prove that at least 20% of cobalt, 28% of lithium and 20% of nickel come from recycled sources, and power batteries must have an electronic identity passport that can be traced throughout the entire process.

power batteries are one of the main costs of new energy vehicles, and their recycling is objectively economical. from 2022 to 2023, the downstream market of new energy vehicles has exploded for two consecutive years. coupled with the scarcity of resources, the price of the entire battery material has skyrocketed, which has a great impact on electric vehicle companies.

li yan believes that if a large number of batteries can be effectively recycled, it can resist the risk of price cycle fluctuations in the international market to a certain extent and enhance the resilience and stability of the industrial chain. "as long as the technology is mature and some corresponding materials are recycled and reused, the cost itself is relatively stable." according to estimates, the recycling scale of my country's power battery market will reach 140.6 billion yuan in 2023, becoming a huge market.

according to the forecast of the china automotive strategy and policy research center of the china automotive technology and research center, the amount of retired power batteries will exceed 30gwh in 2025, exceed 80gwh in 2027, and exceed 100gwh in 2028. the upcoming wave of retired power batteries will also give birth to a very complete power battery recycling and reuse industry. it effectively connects with automobile production and battery production, and will also promote the low-carbon transformation of the economy to form a more complete industrial chain. "low-carbon economy is not for the sake of low-carbon, but for better development." in the process of development, reducing carbon and effectively transforming from different links will form a better and more harmonious model of economic activities.

we must speed up the solution to the problem of industrial "circulation"

at the same time, what are the shortcomings in the recycling and reuse of power batteries?

"if an industry can develop healthily, on the one hand, the links of the industrial chain must be improved, and on the other hand, the operation and connection of the industrial chain must be efficient." li yan believes that from the upstream perspective, from the perspective of electric vehicle manufacturers and automobile battery manufacturers, they have actually made technological breakthroughs in many aspects, but when it comes to battery recycling, it is equivalent to the midstream of the industrial chain "how to recycle efficiently and return to formal recycling companies, how to evaluate batteries, and how to assemble them again?" the overall links of this industry have not yet been fully formed, including in the future when used batteries have been used to a certain extent and must be recycled, whether disassembly and reuse can be effectively connected.

this is a key point that restricts the entire power battery recycling industry. li yan listed a set of data - in 2022, my country's theoretical recycling volume of used batteries should be 7.5 million tons, but in fact only 3 million tons will be used, less than half.

she believes that the upstream industry chain of power batteries is dominated by manufacturers. safety and reliability are very important in their battery design and production process. however, the industry has found that whether the battery design process can be effectively recycled and the recycling cost can be reduced is also very important. for example, some car companies say that there are more than 100 types of batteries. if so many batteries are not standardized and cannot be mechanized and automated during disassembly, the cost will be very high.

more importantly, how to give full play to the economic benefits of each link in the power battery recycling industry chain and enhance market competitiveness is the key to the industry's "circulation". "the poor efficiency of recycling companies is not only due to the technology itself, but more importantly, the cost of reverse logistics." li yan said that the process from resources to production and then to consumption is called forward logistics, which is equivalent to the process of breaking the whole into parts, but recycling and reuse is equivalent to the process of gathering parts into a whole, which requires continuous return from the consumer end. returning has costs, and how to reduce this cost may be the biggest problem now.

"the premise of utilization is recycling. only by increasing the recycling rate can we have a high profit margin. only when the cost of recycling is reduced, the corresponding materials of the recycled lithium batteries will have a competitive advantage over the original materials and have market competitiveness," she said.

li yan believes that it is necessary to speed up the layout of the entire power battery recycling industry chain. now it is more based on the spontaneous formation of the market, but in fact it still needs the government to consciously guide it, using subsidies, tax exemptions and other economic means to stimulate and encourage more capital to enter this market. for example, the overall environmental and social benefits of power battery recycling are very good, but it still lacks the price economic advantage to compete with virgin materials.

"both the current industrial layout and the entire industrial chain need to be further improved. only by reducing its costs and improving its efficiency can it be economically feasible and circulated," she said.

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