New energy vehicles eliminate the pollution caused by the exhaust emissions of traditional fuel vehicles to the atmosphere, but the environmental pollution caused by the use of waste batteries brings new problems to the society.
As electric vehicles become the mainstream of mobility vehicles, companies are grappling with an important environmental question: what happens to the lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles once they are scrapped?
Roskill Information Services predicts that by 2025, batteries used in electric vehicles will account for 90% of the lithium-ion battery market for electric vehicles. This would quadruple the demand for lithium and more than double the demand for cobalt. Lithium and cobalt are two essential elements for making electric vehicle batteries. The price of cobalt has risen more than 80% this year.
However, while recycling small electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries is not common, many companies want to recycle car batteries and are looking for ways to profit from recycling used car batteries.
Since 2006, Belgian Umicore has been one of the few companies to recycle lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. It uses a smelting and chemical leaching process to recover metals. Now it is running a pilot project to recycle electric vehicle batteries, the company said. This is in preparation for 2025 when it is likely that a considerable number of car batteries will enter the market.
One of the problems is that electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles use many different chemical processes, which makes standardized recycling difficult.
"Everyone is taking their own approach," said Linda Gaines, an analyst at Argonne National Laboratory's Transportation Research Center. Recycling lead-acid batteries is much simpler.
Oregon-based OnTo Technologies wants to sidestep the question. The approach it takes is to manufacture high-quality battery electrode materials directly from used batteries, rather than dismantling battery components.
Canadian recycling company Lithium Recycling says that to be profitable, all battery materials need to be recycled. The company claims it can recycle all kinds of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and recover 90 percent of its materials, including lithium, cobalt, copper and graphite.
It is estimated that by 2030, more than 11 million tons of used lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles will be discarded. The company hopes to initially process 5,000 tons a year, and eventually 250,000 tons a year.
