Can the lithium recovered from the power battery alleviate the shortage of lithium resources?
Judging from the current overall situation of the industry, lithium obtained through recycling channels accounts for a small proportion of the lithium supply of power batteries.
On the other hand, despite the huge number of retired power batteries, only 10%-20% can actually be recycled and reused.
With the continuous increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the attention to the retirement and recycling of power batteries continues to increase.
What makes battery recycling the focus of public opinion is the "space-to-air confrontation" between the two listed companies.
At the 2022 World Power Battery Conference, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, said that "the recovery rate of lithium has reached more than 90%", causing the stock price of the lithium mining sector to plummet; then Tianqi Lithium Industry suspected of "returning" from the air, saying Lithium recovery is theoretically possible, but it cannot be recycled and reused on a large scale commercially, and it is believed that the lithium recovery rate "should be able to be achieved in the laboratory, but it has not been seen commercially."
In this regard, Ningde Times told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that they are welcome to visit Guangdong Bangpu to see advanced mass production technology.
On July 28, Tianqi’s board secretary said in response to investors’ questions that Tianqi has carried out the construction of a power battery recycling system and the layout of recycling channels from six major channels to build a waste lithium battery recycling ecosystem.
Two days ago, on July 26, LG New Energy announced that it will establish a battery recycling joint venture with Huayou Cobalt in China. The joint venture will use Huayou Cobalt's infrastructure to extract lithium, nickel and cobalt from waste batteries. .
On July 24, GEM said that it has signed a cooperation agreement with Ruipu Lanjun Energy, and the two parties will jointly establish a waste power battery recycling, recycling and remanufacturing system.
How big is the market space for the increasingly hot power battery recycling market, what bottlenecks are faced by the industry, and can it alleviate the anxiety of lithium resources as the industry expands?
Industrial chain companies scramble to recover Nuggets batteries, and whitelisted companies are still plagued by the "black market"
Behind the "challenging" between CATL and Tianqi Lithium is that with the continuous increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the issue of power battery retirement and recycling is urgent, and the market "cake" is huge.
According to public data, the first batch of electric vehicles was officially launched on the market in 2011, and the number of registered companies related to battery recycling exceeded 200 for the first time in the same year; with the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the industry believes that power batteries will soon usher in a real wave of retirement , the number of business registrations related to battery recycling will soar directly to 24,000 in 2021.
Tian Yongqiu, an analyst in the automotive industry, said, "The main reason for the explosive growth in the registration of battery recycling-related companies in 2021 is that the first batch of electric vehicle batteries in the market is entering the retirement period, and the market prospects are bright. In addition, supporting industries related to power battery recycling are also being gradually landed.”
Benefiting from the broad prospects of the industry, various capitals have poured into this track.
In May of this year, Ganfeng Lithium Industry and Tianqi Lithium Industry announced the layout of power battery recycling; at the end of June, Ganfeng Lithium Industry and Honeycomb Energy reached a cooperation, and the two parties will cooperate in the layout of lithium resources and battery recycling.
In terms of car companies, BMW Group announced in May that it has reached a cooperation with Zhejiang Huayou Cycle Technology Co., Ltd. to realize closed-loop recycling of power battery raw materials, and use the decomposed raw materials to produce new power batteries.
As of July, GEM, a power battery recycling company, has successively reached cooperation with Shanhe Intelligent and Ruipu Lanjun to lay out power battery recycling.
Although the track is hot, the current power battery recycling industry still faces many problems.
Up to now, only 45 companies have entered the white list of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and most of the retired batteries still flow to the "black market".
Mo Ke, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, said that at present, the amount of used batteries that qualified lithium battery recycling companies can really recycle is 10% to 20% of the entire market.
Wang Yao, Assistant Secretary-General of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and Minister of Technology Department, said, "'Black Workshop' has lower operating costs than the regular army, and it is often easier to obtain batteries with a price advantage. However, due to the irregular processing process and low technical level , 'black workshop' is more likely to cause safety accidents and pollution problems when dealing with it, and it is also very unfavorable for the traceability management of batteries in the industry. For the recycling industry, the existence of 'black workshop' seriously disrupts the market order, and formal enterprises cannot take it. When it comes to batteries, it is difficult to form a production scale, and it is impossible to talk about the rapid development of the recycling industry."
Sun Fengchun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that while the power battery recycling industry is developing rapidly, problems have been exposed one after another, such as unreasonable resource allocation, repeated construction of recycling outlets, high construction and recycling costs, and low recycling rates for regular enterprises. There are many companies involved, information flow is difficult to guarantee, and problems such as information asymmetry between retired battery holding companies and back-end recycling companies have become prominent, resulting in chaos such as small companies hoarding goods and regular companies having no supply.
The income is not as good as "selling scrap iron"? There are still profitability and technical problems to be solved under the prospect of a market scale of 100 billion
Gaogong lithium battery data shows that in 2021, the theoretical decommissioning of lithium batteries nationwide will reach 512,000 tons. In the same year, China actually recycled a total of 299,000 tons of used lithium batteries.
The service life of new energy vehicle batteries is usually 4-6 years. It is preliminarily estimated that 252,000 tons of power batteries will be retired in 2021, and this number will increase to 2.373 million tons in 2030, which corresponds to a market space of 107.43 billion yuan.
Wang Zhenpo, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, preliminarily predicted that in the next five years, an average of 20-30GWH/160,000 tons of power batteries will be retired every year.
GF Securities analysis believes that the power battery market space is rapidly increasing, and the scale of lithium battery recycling in 2030 will reach 108.9 billion yuan under a neutral forecast.
But in fact, judging from the current development status of the power battery recycling market, on the one hand, it is necessary to prevent "black workshops" from disrupting the market order, and on the other hand, it is also necessary to solve the problem of profitability.
Zhang Tianren, chairman of Tianneng Group, once said that the value of materials extracted from a ton of lithium iron phosphate waste batteries by an ordinary recycling company is 8,110 yuan, but the recycling cost is as high as 8,540 yuan. Such companies often need government subsidies, and ultimately The returns are not even as high as "selling scrap iron".
In addition, there are also bottlenecks in automated dismantling, crushing and sorting, and intelligent dissociation technology.
Ningde Times said that key technologies and equipment such as efficient extraction of valuable metals need to be upgraded, and the level of pollution prevention and control for dismantling and disposal of waste power batteries needs to be improved; at the same time, power batteries are still non-standard products, and the cost of recycling and dismantling is relatively large and difficult. Realize the mechanization of the whole process.
Sun Fengchun believes that it is necessary to guard against recycling without collection, collection without use, collection and abuse, and strengthen the full life cycle management of power batteries.
Wang Yao believes that on the one hand, it is necessary to promote recycling legislation, clarify the main responsibilities of all parties, and increase the punishment of "black workshops"; Enterprises with strong recycling and processing capabilities carry out recycling in an orderly manner.
Can the recycling of power batteries alleviate the anxiety of lithium resources? Far water may be difficult to quench thirst near
In fact, there is another reason behind the "challenging each other" between CATL and Tianqi Lithium, that is, the price of upstream raw materials for power batteries has continued to rise in the past two years.
The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in early 2020 is about 40,000 yuan/ton, and the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in early 2021 is 72,000 yuan/ton. Since then, the price has soared to about 480,000 yuan/ton in July this year.
Institutions such as CITIC Securities predict that lithium prices will remain high this year.
In order to cope with the rising price of raw materials, in addition to mining by yourself, the recycling and dismantling of power batteries is theoretically a good way.
Zeng Yuqun said that batteries are different from oil, which is gone after oil is used, and most of the materials in batteries can be recycled.
Taking Bangpu as an example, the recovery rate of nickel, cobalt and manganese has reached 99.3%, and the recovery rate of lithium has also reached more than 90%.
It is estimated that by 2035, the recycling of retired battery materials can meet most of the market demand.
Guangdong Bangpu is a holding subsidiary of CATL, focusing on the recycling of waste batteries; Guangdong Bangpu has publicly stated that through the "directional circulation" technology, the comprehensive recovery rate of core metal materials in waste batteries can reach more than 99.3%.
In fact, not only Guangdong Bangpu, but also the power battery recycling company GEM has also publicly stated that its lithium recovery rate can reach more than 90%.
Some people in the industry believe that from a technical point of view, the equipment and technology of large enterprises are relatively advanced, and the recycling and processing of used batteries can achieve a lithium recovery rate of 90%, but the equipment and technology of small and medium-sized enterprises are still difficult to achieve.
In fact, the approximate recovery rate can be calculated according to the amount of lithium used in power batteries, the amount of recycling used batteries, and the amount of lithium extracted by final recycling. However, because most of the used batteries flow into the "black market", the overall recovery rate of the industry is not high.
The "New Battery Law" newly passed by the EU in March this year mentioned that the lithium recovery rate in the EU will increase from 35% to 70% in 2026 and to 90% by 2030; it can be found that the current lithium recovery rate of the entire industry is The level is not too high.
Can the lithium recovered from the power battery alleviate the shortage of lithium resources?
Judging from the current overall situation of the industry, lithium obtained through recycling channels accounts for a small proportion of the lithium supply of power batteries.
On the other hand, despite the huge number of retired power batteries, only 10%-20% can actually be recycled and reused.
It is worth mentioning that Zeng Yuqun also mentioned that "by 2035, the materials in the retired batteries can be recycled to meet a large part of the market demand"; while GEM said that with the increase in the popularity of new energy vehicles, it will continue to enter the stock market. In the market, not only lithium, but also raw materials such as nickel and cobalt can be recycled.
Yu Qingjiao, secretary general of the Zhongguancun New Battery Technology Innovation Alliance, said that in the future, battery recycling channels will become one of the main channels for the supply of nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources. It is conservatively estimated that after 2030, 50% of nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources will come from recycling. It is possible.
However, this stage has not yet arrived, which also means that the distant water is difficult to quench the thirst of the near.
Qi Haishen, President of Beijing Teyi Sunshine New Energy, said that for the power battery recycling industry, how to reduce energy consumption, reduce environmental pollution caused by waste water and waste acid and alkali salts, and improve recycling efficiency while ensuring certain recycling economic benefits , is the key element to ensure the self-circulation and sustainable development of the lithium battery industry in the future.