In recent years, new energy vehicles have developed rapidly and gradually become a new sales force in the market. However, at the same time, there is constant controversy among insiders and outsiders about whether electric vehicles are environmentally friendly.

　　Among them, the most controversial one is the batteries used in electric vehicles. Due to the presence of heavy metals, electrolytes, and other chemicals in power batteries, improper handling can cause significant environmental pollution.

　　So, many manufacturers and third-party organizations are actively promoting the recycling of power batteries. Recently, as the world's largest car company, Volkswagen Group officially announced the launch of its power battery recycling plan.

　　According to the Volkswagen Group's plan, the initial plan is to recycle 3600 battery systems per year, equivalent to 1500 tons. In the future, with the continuous optimization of the recycling management process, the factory will further expand its capacity to handle larger battery recycling needs.

　　Unlike other battery recycling institutions, Volkswagen recycles old batteries that cannot be used for other purposes. The recycling process no longer uses high-energy blast furnace smelting technology, but involves deep discharge and disassembly. The battery components are crushed into particles and then dried and screened, while the core components of the old batteries are used to produce new cathode materials.

　　Affected by policies, laws and regulations, major car companies around the world are actively promoting the recycling of power batteries. Among them are both Chang'an and BYD, which are independent brands; There are also joint venture brands such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, and General Motors.

　　BYD is a well-deserved leader in the field of new energy, and has been laying out plans for power battery recycling for a long time. In January 2018, BYD reached a strategic cooperation with China Tower Corporation, a major domestic power battery recycling company.

　　BAIC New Energy has successively launched strategic cooperation with Ningde Times and Greenway Co., Ltd., which is engaged in power battery recycling, on power battery recycling; SAIC Group and Geely have teamed up with Ningde Times to expand their power battery recycling business.

　　In addition to domestic brands, foreign car companies such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, and General Motors among joint venture brands are also intensifying their collaboration with third-party institutions to engage in power battery recycling. BMW collaborates with Bosch; Mercedes Benz collaborates with battery recycling companies to implement the Lunen project, using retired batteries to build a large photovoltaic power station energy storage system.

　　The Nissan brand among the three Japanese brands has chosen to establish a joint venture with Sumitomo Corporation, 4REergy, to establish a factory specializing in the reuse and treatment of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. The recycled batteries that cannot be reused will be concentrated as energy storage equipment for commercial residential use.

　　Firstly, we need to understand what recycling is. Recycling actually refers to the multi-level and reasonable utilization of waste lithium power batteries in new energy vehicles, mainly including cascade utilization and resource regeneration.

　　Currently, the power batteries on the market are mainly divided into two types: ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries, both of which contain heavy metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese. Among them, cobalt and nickel are rare mineral resources at the level of Chinese sturgeon in China, which are very precious.

　　The methods for recycling heavy metals from waste batteries are also different domestically and internationally. The European Union mainly extracts useful metals through processes such as pyrolysis wet purification, crushing pyrolysis distillation pyrometallurgy, while domestic recycling companies typically use pyrolysis mechanical disassembly, physical sorting, and wet metallurgy processes to treat waste batteries.

　　Secondly, considering the complex composition ratio of power batteries, different types of batteries have different recovery rates, and different types of batteries also have different recovery processes. For example, the recovery of cobalt and nickel is generally better by pyrometallurgical extraction, while hydrometallurgy is more effective in recovering metals from lithium phosphate ferroelectric batteries.

　　On the other hand, although waste batteries can be recycled and reused, the economic benefits of recycling them are not high. According to data, the current cost of recycling 1 ton of lithium iron phosphate batteries is around 8500 yuan. However, after refining the metal from waste batteries, the market value obtained ranges from 9000 to 10000 yuan, with very low profits.

　　As for ternary lithium batteries, although the recycling efficiency is higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, due to the toxicity of cobalt and the risk of secondary pollution and even explosion caused by improper operation, there are higher requirements for equipment and personnel, and the cost expenditure is higher. However, the economic benefits are still relatively low.

　　However, generally speaking, the actual capacity loss of waste batteries can rarely exceed 70%, so these batteries are usually utilized in a cascade manner, such as for low-end electric vehicles, electric tools, wind power generation and storage devices, etc., in order to achieve the reuse of waste batteries.

　　Although cascade utilization does not require complete disassembly of the battery, due to the uneven battery cells (such as Tesla NCA), there are still many problems in practical application, such as how to reassemble different battery modules? How to accurately predict battery life through indicators such as SOC.

　　Furthermore, there is an issue of economic efficiency. Generally speaking, the cost of power batteries is relatively high. Therefore, in the later stage of cascade utilization, if they are used in energy storage, lighting and other fields, they may be overutilized, and sometimes the gains and losses may not be worth the losses, and the cost may be even higher.

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