In this special recycling feature, BEST take an in-depth and informed look at the issues, challenges and solutions, with particular focus on the lithium-ion sector.
Amid the hundreds of events and reports we comb through every week in covering the news for BEST— and our e-newsletter BEST Battery Briefing— one word is never far from the headlines: recycling.
Recycling is an increasingly critical sector of our industry as electric vehicle manufacturers seek to burnish their green credentials by ensuring that what’s under the bonnet, or chassis, provides power and range that is also sustainable.
As our articles here show, pressure is mounting on legislators and policymakers worldwide to follow lead’s lessons in recycling lithium-ion batteries.
In Europe, political leaders have been urged to follow the example of the lead-acid industry in recycling batteries to create a “sustainable” system for conserving raw materials and reusing electric vehicle (EV) batteries for energy storage.
The call came in a report from Germany’s independent and non-profit Oeko-Institut, entitled ‘Ensuring a Sustainable Supply of Raw Materials for Electric Vehicles’.
The intervention was timely, because the Institute has been tasked with reviewing the European Union’s existing Batteries Directive, which dates back to 2006— and is badly in need of an update if the bloc is able to respond effectively to the dynamic developments in e-mobility.
According to the Institute, the EU needs to set ambitious goals for the collection, reuse and recycling of used traction batteries and specific targets for the recovery of key strategic raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.
There is “currently no real provision for lithium recycling” in Europe, the Institute said, meaning it will be “essential to ensure that batteries are collected and recycled as efficiently as possible” in Europe and worldwide.
But Europe is not alone in facing up to the dilemma of embracing all things ‘new energy’, while questions remain about sustainability of raw materials and concern that not enough is— or can— be done to rectify what is a dearth of recycling.
In China, lead-acid battery maker the Camel Group announced earlier this year it was scrambling to build a pilot 500-ton power battery recycling line and a demonstration unit that could process 20,000 tons of power batteries annually. Camel is not the only company rallying to the recycling of lithium.
This was in response to the publication of a lit of interim measures by the Chinese government to steer the recycling of batteries from the country’s fast-developing new energy vehicle market.
Meanwhile, in Australia, concern is mounting— as you will read in this section— over that country’s lithium battery waste, which is growing by 20% each year.
In the US, as this edition of BEST was being put to bed, a new US-Korean joint venture announced plans to launch a major lithium-ion batteries recycling operation. The exact location of the facility in the US is still under wraps, but the companies behind the project said the facility will “redefine” the lithium-ion battery, e-waste recycling, energy and metals markets in North America— “where consumption of cobalt and lithium has outpaced supply in recent years”.
Every generation needs its heroes. Where will the electrochemical industry find its next recycling champion?
