Lead-acid batteries are easy to recycle. According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of this year, 54 listed companies in the upstream, midstream, and downstream of the power battery industry announced investment and expansion plans, with a total investment of nearly 116 billion yuan. The booming lithium battery industry may have already foreseen that it is about to face its biggest bottleneck in development.
Is cost the bottleneck? Certainly, cost was once the biggest challenge facing the lithium battery industry. However, thanks to the dedicated research and development of many companies, the average cost of lithium batteries has decreased in recent years. Safety issues that once plagued the lithium battery industry have also seen breakthroughs in recent years. Regarding the electric vehicle industry's widespread concern about whether lithium batteries can replace lead-acid batteries, with the backdrop of decreasing lithium battery costs and increasing safety, the issue of lithium battery recycling has become the most crucial step in determining whether lithium batteries can replace lead-acid batteries.
Lithium battery recycling is complex and costly.
Why is lithium battery recycling so difficult? The technical process for lithium battery recycling is quite complex. Batteries must first undergo pretreatment, including discharging, disassembling, crushing, and sorting. The disassembled plastic and metal casings can be recycled, but at a high cost: because the residual voltage can still be as high as several hundred volts (excluding 18650 batteries), posing a certain danger; and for safety reasons, the battery casings are sealed in a non-removable form, making opening them quite laborious.
In terms of pre-processing, it's definitely a losing proposition. Lithium-ion battery cathode materials are incredibly diverse, with mainstream options including lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganese oxide, lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide, and lithium iron phosphate. Leaching with acid and alkali solutions, followed by various chemical processes to extract the metal oxides, is used. However, the extraction conditions for these oxides differ, making the mixed solutions even more challenging. Pre-sorting batteries according to cathode materials is also costly. Recycling cathode metals is already the most profitable part of the battery recycling industry. However, the process is too complex, deterring companies that understand the financial implications.
With commodity, non-ferrous metal, and rare earth product prices currently hovering at low levels, recycling metals using these methods is extremely unprofitable, not to mention the even more troublesome wastewater treatment afterwards. At the current technological level, wastewater treatment alone is enough to wipe out the meager profits from metal recycling. There are people willing to do profitable ventures, but no one will take on unprofitable business. Under current technological conditions, no company will proactively invest in the recycling industry.
Therefore, the only remaining option is to passively cope. The reason for this situation lies not in the lithium batteries themselves, but in the current technology. If a profitable recycling industry cannot be established in the next few years, lithium batteries will become a "time bomb." And the first to bear the brunt will naturally be lithium battery manufacturers. The "Technical Policy for the Recycling and Utilization of Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles," jointly released recently by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission, clearly defines the responsible parties for the first time, following the same logic as pollution control: whoever produces it is responsible, and whoever pollutes it is responsible for its remediation.
From a policy perspective, such regulations are intended to avoid liability issues. However, for the lithium battery industry, these regulations miss a crucial point for companies: how to make a profit.
If lithium battery recycling can achieve a major technological breakthrough in the next two years, lithium batteries will truly replace lead-acid batteries.
