Use of electric car
Electric cars: Battery recycling for more sustainability
20.07.2024
Manufacturing batteries for electric cars requires enormous amounts of energy and resources That’s why it’s important to recycle them. This is something that will be particularly relevant from the 2030s onwards. Swiss companies are looking to get involved, too.
Why is it so important to recycle electric car batteries?
If more and more people are using e-vehicles, there will also be more and more electric cars. When their useful life is over, they have to be scrapped. But what happens to their lithium-ion batteries? Since electromobility offers an opportunity for more sustainable transport, simply throwing them away is not a solution: Because the Manufacturing of electric car batteries is particularly resource- and energy-intensive. In addition, some of the raw materials required, such as cobalt, come from countries with dubious social standards. Last but not least, Europe for many raw materials dependence on a few countries. The solution to all these problems is recycling: it conserves resources and reduces dependency.
The recycling of e-car batteries must on a large scale. A Study shows that on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy in 2023, states that global production of lithium-ion batteries will increase six to ten times by 2030. It is said that the capacity required will then be in the order of several terawatt hours – or several billion kilowatt hours. And that’s per year! With one terawatt hour Production capacity can be around 15 million electric passenger cars with batteries.
How long does an electric car battery last?
An e-car battery should last for at least eight years or 160,000 kilometers. Most Manufacturers of electric vehicles guarantee that their lithium-ion batteries will then at least 70% capacity . With some providers, the warranty is even higher. How long an electric car battery ultimately lasts depends on numerous factors. These include:
driving style
typical outside temperatures
type of charging
Practical experience indicates that drive batteries are long-lasting and fairly reliable. Examples include the Long-term tests of the ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) with the BMW i3, on Nissan Leaf and the Renault Zoe. And in 2022, Renault launched its own Experience with Zoe E-Tech’s lithium-ion batteries 99% of all batteries used since the market launch in 2013 were still fully functional and had at least 70% of their initial capacity.
What is the second life of an electric car battery?
In Second Life, old e-car batteries can be used as stationary Buffer storage in the power grid use. This is relevant when a lithium-ion battery has aged to such an extent that there is an unacceptable reduction in the vehicle range.
Since a more sustainable supply of energy is required so as to protect the climate, the share of renewable energy is increasing. This development is worldwide to be determined. Wind and solar energy in particular have a key role to play here. But the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. For this reason, energy supply networks have to be able to temporarily store any sustainably generated electricity that is currently not needed.
For such stationary energy storage are disused electric car batteries predestined. When used in this way, the batteries are far less exposed to stress and strain than is possible in a car. There are no load peaks as there are in a car when it accelerates, for instance. In the meantime, there are a number of such Second-life storage, also in the Switzerland’s population density of. A lot of projects still lack longstanding experience. But it turns out thatthat the second life of a battery could take an entire decade. Such buffer stores from Second-life batteries can of course not only be used directly in the energy supply grids, but also locally: for factories, for single-family homes with photovoltaic systems or for charging stations.
What does the circuit of an electric car battery look like?
After her First life in an electric car and their Second life in energy storage from today’s perspective, there is no sensible application scenario for lithium-ion batteries. What remains is the Recovery of raw materials. something that batteries of this kind contain a lot of. They can then serve as a basis for the manufacture of new lithium-ion batteries. The aim is to achieve the highest possible recycling rates – something that makes both ecological and economic sense.
What raw materials does an electric car battery contain?
Every lithium-ion traction battery contains tens of kilograms of metals. The exact proportions depend on the cell chemistry used. They have changed over the years and will continue to do so, given the rapid advances in battery cell development. Energy Switzerland announces for 2020 a Battery with 60 kWh capacity the following values:
Lithium: five to seven kilograms
Cobalt: five to eleven kilograms
Nickel: 28 to 39 kilograms of nickel
Manganese: five to 16 kilograms
Graphite: 45 to 53 kilograms
Aluminium: 30 to 35 kilograms
Copper: 19 to 20 kilograms
Steel: 19 to 20 kilograms
This does not yet include the material of the battery housing. Some of the raw materials used are different in the case of different cell chemistry, such as lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are becoming increasingly widespread.
How do you extract raw materials from lithium-ion batteries?
First, the batteries have to be dismantled into their component parts. There are various ways of recycling raw materials, and companies and research institutions are working to improve these methods, too. In principle, in the case of Recycling an electric car battery following Steps from:
The Unloading of the battery, for safety reasons.
The Disassembly of the battery. It consists of a housing, electronics, a cooling circuit and the actual battery cells, which are then arranged in housings, potentially in groups.
Mechanical processes such as shredding, screening or sorting.
In the final step, the Raw materials chemically or thermally extracted. In the case of the chemical method, acids are used, for example. In the case of the thermal method, the residual mass is burned at high temperatures and the different melting points of the components are used to separate them.
Thermal recycling in particular is very energy-intensive, which is why alternatives are attracting great interest in the industry. Depending on the specific process, today Recycling quotas from 30 to 90%.
Are lithium-ion car batteries recycled in Switzerland?
No. Because the Recycling is currently not profitableAccording to the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. But given economies of scale, recycling costs could decrease as volumes increased. A recently published Investigation by the consulting firm Strategy& concludes, for example, that battery recycling in the EU should already be a profitable business before 2035. So it’s not so much about being the first, but being ready on time.
The association of Swiss car importers, Auto-Schweiz, is getting prepared. A first step was the founding of Sestorec cooperative. This includes members of Auto-Schweiz as well as importers and other car manufacturers. For example, a Industry solution for Switzerland in the future. Around the world, the automotive and recycling industries are working on recycling concepts for electric car batteries which ensure that the cycle is as closed as possible.
Numerous start-ups have sprung up, too. Relevant Projects are often still in an early stage. Recycling companies currently tend to process cells from waste generated during battery production. To a much lesser extent, batteries are recycled from vehicles involved in an accident or as part of warranty claims.
These are the Swiss companies that recycle batteries or are intending to do so:
Batrec, a specialist in hazardous industrial waste, has been recycling all types of batteries for a long time. As things stand, hardly any of the batteries used come from the fledgling market for electric cars.
Kyburz is best known for its three-wheeled post-electric scooters. For their batteries, the company has developed an energy-efficient Recycling process established. recovery rates of over 90%. But the process is currently only suitable for lithium-iron-phosphate batteries made by Kyburz itself. Together with the research institution Empa and other project partners, the company now wants to be Transferring process to lithium-ion batteries.
Librec Librec is a start-up that aims to start recycling lithium-ion batteries in 2024 – for Switzerland and neighbouring countries. Before a battery is recycled, the company systematically checks its suitability for second-life use.
What are the foreseeable developments in the area of recycling?
In addition to the key step of scaling business, there are other ways to ensure cost-effective recycling. For example, a lighter – and, above all, automatable – Disassembling the batteries a major competitive advantage.
Changed cell chemistry would also have a positive effect because fewer materials would be involved. One example is the aforementioned Lithium iron phosphate batteries, without cobalt, nickel and manganese.
With Sodium ion batteries, whose practical suitability for electromobility is currently being tested in practice, the recycling situation could improve dramatically once again. It still remains to be seen whether or not this is feasible. As things stand today, sodium ion batteries are not as powerful as lithium-ion batteries.
What is the legal situation regarding battery recycling?
The EU has recently made its Battery Ordinance revised. As a result, the recycling rate is no longer 50% but 90%, later to be increased to 95%. Every newly produced battery must contain a certain share of recycled raw materials. These include cobalt, nickel and lithium. The prescribed share increases specifically over time. For example, the share of recycled cobalt must be 6% by 2031 and 26% by 2036.
In addition, from 2027, there will be a mandatory Battery passport which also includes information on how to assemble and disassemble the battery. Last autumn, the VCS Verkehrs-Club der Schweiz (VCS Transport Club of Switzerland) Consultation response demanded that Switzerland bring its recycling into line with the EU regulation. Legal framework conditions are needed in Switzerland to enable a circular economy to be established for batteries.
In all recycling activities, it is important that long transport routes to avoid. after all, batteries are heavy – and would otherwise have an unnecessary impact on the environment at the end of their lifetime. So presumably specific recycling loops will at least be established for each region of the world.