為了處置市場上將出現(xiàn)的大量廢舊電動車電池,已有多家公司開始著手研究電池回收技術。
回收電動車電池是汽車行業(yè)多年以來的目標,但由于基礎設施薄弱,電池回收技術的大規(guī)模落地仍處于早期階段。隨著電動車產(chǎn)生的廢舊鋰離子電池和電芯不斷增加,汽車行業(yè)也做好了將其回收再利用的準備。
美國聯(lián)邦政府推出了促進鋰離子電池回收的舉措,而這不止是為了減少電池對環(huán)境的影響。廢舊電池材料不僅能用于制造新電池,也有助于將電動車電池的生產(chǎn)成本降低至60美元/kWh的國家目標。
2019年2月,美國能源部(DOE)汽車技術辦公室(VTO)啟動了ReCell中心,攜手行業(yè)、學術界和國家實驗室共同研發(fā)針對當前和未來電池材料體系的回收技術。ReCell中心由阿貢國家實驗室、國家可再生能源實驗室(NREL)、橡樹嶺國家實驗室以及愛達荷國家實驗室聯(lián)合四所高校共同組建。

ReCell應用材料部材料回收小組負責人Jeff Spangenberger告訴SAE,ReCell不僅關注電池回收的科學問題,還致力于推動行業(yè)的協(xié)作發(fā)展。
Spangenberger表示:“電池回收是降低材料成本的絕佳途徑。從回收材料或電池原料中直接提取所需材料要比開采礦物容易得多,為此需要行業(yè)的共同努力。沒有人能夠單槍匹馬地解決這一問題,所以我們致力于促進行業(yè)機構間的合作。”ReCell會定期舉辦行業(yè)合作會議,以促進各方合作交流。
ReCell重點研究電池直接回收技術。目前電池回收主要依靠濕法冶金和火法冶金兩種技術,即利用化學反應或熱量將電池分解為金屬硫酸鹽等原料化合物。而直接回收技術則有所不同,可以在不分解電池化學結構的情況下,實現(xiàn)電池成分的回收再利用。ReCell官網(wǎng)稱其開發(fā)出了一種名為EverBatt的分析模型,該模型“可比較原始電池與再生電池的影響和工藝,并確定其對不同參數(shù)的敏感性”。利用該模型研究發(fā)現(xiàn),直接回收技術比濕法冶金和火法冶金技術耗能更少,更可持續(xù)。
Spangenberger說:“直接回收技術尚未得到充分研究,也未實現(xiàn)商業(yè)化。但分析表明,直接回收技術蘊藏著巨大機遇,可實現(xiàn)比濕法冶金和火法冶金技術更高的成本效益和更豐厚的利潤。”
他表示,ReCell正在開展的約50個項目中,近一半的項目都在研究直接回收技術。
“我們剛開始探索直接回收技術時,市場上只有一家公司在從事相關研究。但隨著我們不斷取得突破,我們希望帶動整個行業(yè)蓬勃發(fā)展。目前,市場上已有大約三家公司在從事相關研究,并已達到試點規(guī)模。這表明,投資者已經(jīng)關注到了直接回收技術,并愿意投資。”
ReCell的其他項目關注的是高級資源回收(將電池組件升級再造為新產(chǎn)品)、可持續(xù)設計(設計更易于回收或拆解的電池)以及建模和分析(如EverBatt分析模型)等方面。Spangenberger表示,這些研究能夠讓ReCell專心攻克那些對整個行業(yè)至關重要的技術。而以上四個方面顯然是相輔相成的。舉例來說,可持續(xù)設計需要考慮諸如“為了提升性能而增加一種化學物質(zhì)是否會導致電池變得不可回收”這樣的問題。
Spangenberger認為:“可持續(xù)性并不是產(chǎn)品設計的首要指標,如果產(chǎn)品連銷路都沒有,那么回收也無從談起。因此,降低成本和提高性能都很重要。但我認為,對任何產(chǎn)品而言,使用壽命結束后的廢棄管理都是必須納入產(chǎn)品設計的一個指標。”
全球數(shù)字現(xiàn)實解決方案公司??怂箍笛邪l(fā)的數(shù)字孿生模型可幫助企業(yè)更好地制造產(chǎn)品。??怂箍灯嚳偙O(jiān)George Cuff告訴SAE,數(shù)字孿生技術可用于分析電動車電池在真實場景中的性能,比如電池的各種熱特性等。
Cuff表示:“我們可以收集電池的性能信息,并用于產(chǎn)品研發(fā)。我們的仿真空間有各種工具。希望優(yōu)化電池設計的制造商可以在不同場景中進行測試,并借助真實場景反饋的信息實現(xiàn)設計優(yōu)化。”
他指出,數(shù)字孿生技術還能提升電池的回收效率。例如,??怂箍档能浖湍茉跀?shù)字孿生模型中管理各種材料,用于仿真分析。
“憑借這些數(shù)據(jù),便可針對特定電池或車型進行分析,比如掌握某些原材料的數(shù)量,分辨出哪些材料可以回收利用,哪些材料是危險廢料。我認為,政府將來一定會規(guī)定或要求行業(yè)掌握電池包的材料類型,分辨哪些材料可回收、哪些不可回收,以及哪些是危險材料。到那時候,我們需要具備處置報廢電池和電池包的有效方案。”
美國環(huán)境保護局建議企業(yè)將廢舊鋰電池作為危險廢料處理,即電池的最終處置需要交由具有資質(zhì)的危險廢料處理廠或回收商完成。如果這些廢舊電池要進行國際運輸,則必須遵守《美國資源保護與回收法案》(RCRA)中有關普遍廢料進出口的要求。如果是國內(nèi)運輸,雖然環(huán)境保護局表示在“經(jīng)銷店、汽車修理廠、廢品場或類似場地”拆除的電動汽車電池并不屬于家庭危險廢物,但美國交通部關于鋰離子電池運輸?shù)囊?guī)定也適用于作為危險廢料運輸?shù)匿囯姵亍?/span>
總部位于馬薩諸塞州沃本市的美國初創(chuàng)公司Factorial Energy正在研發(fā)未來電動車的半固態(tài)電池技術,并已開始探索報廢電池的回收方式。2023年6月,F(xiàn)actorial Energy宣布將與韓國財團永豐集團合作打造電池回收業(yè)務。
Factorial Energy的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官黃思宇告訴SAE:“美國有許多電池回收公司,但大多數(shù)公司主要回收鋰離子電池。而永豐集團是我們當時了解到的唯一一家回收鋰金屬電池的公司,這兩種回收工藝大相徑庭。作為電池制造商,回收鋰金屬電池將有助于我們在未來降低電池成本。而且廢品場會源源不斷地產(chǎn)生廢棄電池,客戶也會產(chǎn)生一些壽命到期的電池,所以讓電池在退役后還能產(chǎn)生價值是件好事。”
黃思宇指出,如果固態(tài)電池在電動車中得到普遍采用,那么會比當前的鋰離子電池更容易回收。
她認為:“拆卸固態(tài)電池本身就比拆卸鋰離子電池更安全。這是因為固態(tài)電池的固體電解質(zhì)比液體電解質(zhì)多。其次,由于回收鋰金屬陽極可能比回收碳或硅陽極價值更高,因此固態(tài)電池的再生價值可能也更高。”
黃思宇表示:“Factorial Energy目前需要將電池組件運到永豐集團的韓國工廠進行回收,但我們也在積極尋找能在北美進行回收的本地供應商。許多供應商都很感興趣,剩下的只是時間和投入研發(fā)鋰金屬回收技術的問題。目前,本地供應商的技術水平還趕不上韓國。但如果市場上出現(xiàn)足夠多的興趣,而且政府也從各種監(jiān)管途徑提供支持,我相信這一定會促進對該行業(yè)的投資。”
美國本地的電池生產(chǎn)和應用也獲得了聯(lián)邦政府的投資。拜登總統(tǒng)于2022年8月通過的《通貨膨脹削減法案》(IRA)除了為2300家電網(wǎng)級電池工廠提供資金外,還包括廣為人知的電動車稅收抵免政策,單輛汽車最高可達7500美元。IRA對國產(chǎn)電池的強調(diào)也將重塑電動車電池的產(chǎn)地和原材料來源。
Aqua Metals的閉環(huán)金屬回收工藝試點項目已經(jīng)運行了一年多。Aqua Metals商業(yè)副總裁David Regan告訴SAE,在公司位于塔霍里諾工業(yè)中心的Sierra ARC (AquaRefining園區(qū))加工中心,各項工作正積極開展。Aqua Metals表示,ARC將成為北美首個可持續(xù)的鋰電池回收中心,也是其Li AquaRefining技術的首次商業(yè)規(guī)模部署。Regan表示,ARC中心將于今年完成設備安裝,計劃從夏季開始回收黑色物質(zhì),并在年底之前全面投產(chǎn)。Aqua Metals的一階段目標是回收3000噸黑色物質(zhì),下一階段的目標是回收1萬噸。
Regan說:“回收1萬噸原料對我們來說完全不是問題。有很多黑色物質(zhì)生產(chǎn)商正在和我們洽淡,剩下的只是定價問題。此外,我們也在同OEM和電池制造商合作。到2030年,這些公司的電池制造產(chǎn)能將達到1TW,這將產(chǎn)生大量的制造廢料,但OEM并不想將其浪費。于是,他們已經(jīng)開始投資相關技術,希望將這些廢料進行循環(huán)利用。”
2024年3月,Aqua Metals和6K Energy宣布將在北美合作打造一條可持續(xù)的鋰電池循環(huán)供應鏈。Regan指出,6K Energy在其工藝中使用的原料是硝酸鹽而非硫酸鹽,因而不會產(chǎn)生任何硫酸鈉廢料。而在傳統(tǒng)的陰極活性材料(CAM)制造工藝中,每生產(chǎn)1噸CAM就會產(chǎn)生約26噸硫酸鈉廢料。Regan說,傳統(tǒng)的濕法回收工藝也是如此,每回收1噸黑色物質(zhì)通常會產(chǎn)生約1.5-2噸的硫酸鈉廢料。
Regan表示:“傳統(tǒng)工藝產(chǎn)生的廢料污染極其嚴重,碳排放量也很高。但我們的工藝不會產(chǎn)生任何硫酸鈉。此外,我們使用的是可再生電力,因而產(chǎn)生的碳足跡也遠低于其它技術。假設使用傳統(tǒng)工藝回收黑色物質(zhì),每回收1噸就會產(chǎn)生2噸硫酸鈉廢料,那么這些廢料必將進入填埋場或流入海洋。如果回收了數(shù)百萬塊鋰離子電池和電動車電池,那么幾十年后將會產(chǎn)生數(shù)百萬噸廢物,這是非常不可持續(xù)的。”
Recycling electric vehicle batteries has been a goal of the auto industry for many years, but the infrastructure to make that a widespread reality is still in the early stages. As the amount of used lithium-ion batteries and cells coming from EVs increases, the industry is getting ready to turn them into fresh packs.
In the U.S., the federal government’s push to recycle more li-ion batteries isn’t just to reduce environmental impact. Salvaged materials can be used in new batteries, and recycling can help get the overall production cost of EV batteries under the national goal of $60/kWh.
In February 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) launched the ReCell Center, bringing together industry, academia, and national laboratories to develop battery recycling technologies for current and future battery chemistries. ReCell is a collaboration of four national laboratories – Argonne, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Oak Ridge and Idaho National Laboratory – and four partner universities.
Jeff Spangenberger, ReCell’s materials recycling group leader in the Applied Materials Division, told SAE Media that ReCell focuses not just on the science of recycling batteries, but also on the people working on this technology.
“Battery recycling is a great way to reduce the material costs,” Spangenberger said. “It’s a lot easier to recover the materials from recycled materials or from the feedstock of batteries than from the ground. To do that, we like to connect people. No one person is going to solve this, and so we try and connect the dots.”
ReCell hosts industry collaboration meetings for those dots, with the next event happening in mid-May.
DIrect recycling at ReCell
ReCell’s research is focused on direct recycling. Unlike existing hydro- or pyro-metallurgical recycling methods that use chemicals or heat to break down a battery into feedstock compounds like metal sulfates, direct recycling recovers or reuses components in the battery without breaking down the chemical structure. ReCell’s website says itdeveloped an analysis model called EverBatt to “compare impacts of virgin batteries to those with recycled content, to compare processes, and to identify sensitivities to various parameters,” and found that direct recycling promises to use less energy and is more sustainable than hydro- or pyro-recycling.
“[Direct recycling is] not really researched, it’s not commercial,” Spangenberger said. “But the analysis says that direct recycling is a huge opportunity to really catapult the industry into a cost-effective, profitable endeavor, and that would be over hydro and pyro.”
Spangenberger said ReCell has around 50 projects it’s working on, with about half of them focused on direct recycling.
“When we started this, there was one company that was working on direct recycling and as we break down the barriers, we want industry to take off,” he said. “Now, there’s about three companies that are working on this up to the pilot scale. That’s showing that we’re getting people interested and funding is flowing into direct recycling.”
ReCell’s other projects focus on advanced resource recovery (finding another home for components, perhaps being upcycled into a new product), design for sustainability (designing batteries so they’re easier to recycle or demanufacture) and modeling and analysis (like EverBatt), which Spangenberger said allows ReCell to focus on projects that make big-picture sense. These four aspects obviously interact with each other. Designing something for sustainability means considering if a chemical added to a battery for better performance could obviate its recycling capability, for example.
“You can’t have [design for sustainability] as the first metric in the design of a product,” Spangenberger said. “If you can’t sell a product, you don’t need to worry about recycling. So, the cost has to be right, performance has to be right. But I think that one of the metrics that has to be included is end-of-life management. And that’s true for any product.”
Hexagon’s digital twins to the rescue
Global digital reality solutions company Hexagon uses digital twins to help companies manufacture their products better. Hexagon’s director of automotive, George Cuff, told SAE Media that digital twin technology can be used with EV batteries to analyze how they function in the real world, like their various thermal characteristics.
“That information can be captured and we can drive that back into product development,” he said. “We’ve got a variety of different tools in the simulation space. As they’re trying to optimize the design, they run through a variety of different scenarios, using that real-world information to help drive that.”
Cuff said digital twins could also be used to better recycle batteries. Hexagon’s software can manage various materials in the digital twin for simulation analysis, for example.
“[That data] can also provide the ability to analyze and say, for this particular battery or this particular vehicle, we have X amount of these raw materials,” he said. “This can be recycled, this percentage is hazardous material waste. I can absolutely see a scenario where governments are going to regulate or require an understanding of the types of materials, what can be recycled in these battery packs, what can’t be, and what would ultimately be hazardous materials. When these batteries and battery packs really come to end of life there, we’re going to need to have a good solid plan to be able to handle them.”
Officially, the EPA recommends that businesses manage used lithium batteries as hazardous waste, which means the batteries need to be sent to a permitted hazardous waste disposal facility or a hazardous waste recycler as their final destination. If these waste batteries are being shipped internationally, they need to comply with RCRA requirements for the export and import of universal waste. Domestically, the Department of Transportation regulations for shipping lithium batteries apply as well to shipping lithium batteries as hazardous waste, even though the EPA says EV batteries that are removed at “a dealership, an auto shop, a scrap yard, or similar type of facility” are not considered household hazardous waste.
Solid-state is easier
Woburn, Massachusetts-based Factorial Energy is developing quasi-solid-state batteries for future EVs, and is already working on how to recycle them at end-of-life. In June 2023, Factorial announced it would work with the South Korean chaebol (conglomerate) Young Poong to build out recycling capabilities.
“There are quite a few recycling companies in the U.S., but most of them have been focused on lithium-ion,” Factorial co-founder and CEO Siyu Huang told SAE Media.”At the time, Young Poong was the only one that we knew was working on lithium metal recycling, and the process is quite different from lithium ion. [This] can help us reduce the cost of the cell in the future because we are a cell maker, and there are always cells coming out of the scrap and there are end-of-life cells and from our customers, so it’s good to have value generated at end of the life.”
Huang said solid-state batteries, if they ever gain widespread acceptance in EVs, will be easier to recycle than today’s li-ion packs.
“Solid state is, by nature, safer for disassembly compared to lithium-ion,” she said. “It has more solid than liquid. Potentially, it also has better regenerative value, too, because recycling lithium metal as the anode is probably going to be more valuable than recycling carbon or silicon in the anode.”
Currently, Factorial needs to ship components to be recycled to Young Poong facilities in South Korea, but is “actively looking for local suppliers that can do recycling in North America,” Huang said. “A lot of them are interested. It’s just a matter of time and commitment to build a technology that’s viable for recycling for lithium metal. Not everyone is as advanced as they are in Korea. But, if there is enough interest and also enough support from the government from various regulatory pathways, I think they’ll definitely bring a good tailwind to such industry investment.”
Watch your waste stream
There’s no lack of federal money headed toward domestic battery production and use. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in August 2022, included money for 2,300 grid-scale battery plants along with the better-known electric vehicle tax credits worth up to $7,500. But the IRA’s emphasis on domestic production is also reshaping where EV batteries will be made and where the mterials will come from.
Aqua Metals has been running a pilot of its closed-loop metal recycling process for a little over a year. David Regan, vice president of commercial at Aqua Metals, told SAE Media that work is progressing on its Sierra ARC (AquaRefining Campus) processing center in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. Aqua Metals said the ARC,“ will be the first sustainable lithium battery recycling center in North America and the first commercial-scale deployment of our Li AquaRefining technology.” Regan said the equipment was being installed this spring, and he expects black mass to be going in over the summer. The ARC should be in full production by the end of the year, he said, and Aqua Metals has a target of processing 3,000 tons of black mass in the first phase, with 10,000 tons as the target for the next phase.
“We don’t see any issues getting feedstock for ourselves at up to 10,000 tons, at all,” he said. “We’re talking to a lot of black mass creators. It’s just really a matter of pricing. We’re also engaged with OEMs and cell manufacturers. Between now and 2030, they’re going to scale to a terawatt of cell manufacturing by 2030. That’s going to produce a significant amount of manufacturing scrap. They don’t want that to go to waste. The OEMs have spent money on that material, and they want to get it back into circulation.”
In March 2024, Aqua Metals and 6K Energy announced they would jointly develop a sustainable lithium battery circular supply chain in North America. Regan said 6K’s process uses nitrates instead of sulfates as a feedstock. 6K doesn’t produce any sodium sulfate waste stream as part of its process, whereas traditional cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing produces around 26 tons of sodium sulfate for every ton of CAM, Regan said. Traditional hydro-recycling also produces about one-and-a-half to two tonnes of sodium sulfate for every ton of black mass, he said.
“Traditional processes are extremely dirty when it comes to waste streams, and also have a high carbon impact,” Regan said. “We don’t produce any sodium sulfate. Using renewable electricity, we have an extremely low carbon footprint compared to other technologies. If we’re producing two tons of sodium sulfate for every ton of black mass recycled, that has to go into landfill or go into the ocean. When we’re recycling millions of lithium-ion batteries, EV batteries, millions of tons eventually, over the decades, that amount of waste stream is just not viable.