Lithium Battery Cathode Material Recycling and Repair Project with an Annual Capacity of 50,000 mt Announced, and Will it Point out a New Direction for Lithium Battery Recycling?

SHANGHAI, Oct 21 (SMM) - In recent years, the demand for new energy vehicles has exploded, and the installed capacity of lithium power batteries is also increasing year by year. In order to cope with the high demand growth, lithium battery manufacturers are also accelerating their production. In fact, the qualified rate of lithium batteries in the production process will not reach 100%, and there will be some scrapped pole pieces, leftovers, unfilled cells, etc. on the production line, but these scraps can still be useful. It is well known that nickel, cobalt and lithium can be extracted from the scrap through hydrometallurgy. In addition to hydrometallurgy, material repair can also achieve the same goal.

Recently, Shandong Huajin Battery Material Technology Co., Ltd. made the second public announcement of the environmental impact assessment of the first phase of its lithium battery cathode material recycling and repair project with an annual output of 50,000 mt. Shandong Huajin Battery Material Technology Co., Ltd. is invested and established by Ningxia Hanyao Fuli Technology Co., Ltd. (formerly Ningxia Hanyao Graphene Energy Storage Material Science and Technology Co., Ltd.) The factory is located in Feicheng Chemical Industry Park, Feicheng City, Shandong Province and covers an area of 54,067 square meters (about 81.1 mu), with a total construction area of 31,856 square meters. It is planned to build a recycling and repairing device with an annual output of 10,000 mt of LFP and 10,000 mt of ternary cathode materials. The raw materials of the project include scrapped lithium battery pole pieces, leftovers, and unfilled cells. The main processes include pole piece treatment, roasting, mechanical peeling/coarse crushing, jet crushing, sieving, drying, demagnetisation, packaging, etc.

It is understood that Ningxia Hanyao's original material repair technology can directly convert ternary scrap and LFP scrap into cathode materials, eliminating a series of complex chemical processes for scrap treatment, reducing environmental pollution, and reducing the recycling cost by more than 90% compared with the conventional recycling scheme.

Nowadays, hydrometallurgy is widely used, while material repair is still in its initial stage. However, material repair has the advantages of environmental protection, high efficiency and low cost. The developing material repair technology will inject new vitality into the battery scrap recycling industry which will witness an increase in the number of retired power batteries in the future to reduce the environmental pressure caused by a large amount of battery scrap. At the same time, the material repair technology will also bring considerable economic benefits, which is conducive to the sustainable development of the lithium battery industry.