Battery Recycling System Research Articles

Multi‐agent behavioral strategy game and synergy evolution path of the retired power battery recycling system

AbstractIn the era of transitioning to a low‐carbon economy, China's electric vehicle market is experiencing exponential growth, a trend that is mirrored by the burgeoning market for the recycling of used power batteries. This rapid expansion underscores the urgency of enhancing the power battery recycling system. However, the lack of sufficient engagement from consumers and recyclers in the recycling system currently impedes the formation of a cohesive recycling effort. To tackle this issue, we introduce a tripartite evolutionary game model involving the government, battery recyclers, and consumers. By analyzing the evolutionary stability strategies (ESSs) and their stability conditions, we delineate the synergetic development paths of them. Numerical examples illustrate the model's effectiveness and explore how government incentive policies can affect the strategic decisions of other participants. Our findings suggest that establishing incentive policies by the government in the early stage of the power battery industry is crucial for fostering a synergetic recycling system that is led by the government, involved by the community, and driven by the market.

Research on blockchain-based recycling mode of used power batteries led by the government

With the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, the environmental safety problems brought by a large number of retired and used batteries have become increasingly prominent. Based on the analysis of the existing market, this paper summarizes the existing recycling mode of manufacturers as the main body, automobile dealers as the main body, and third parties as the main body, proposes a blockchain-based government-led strategic recycling alliance waste and new energy power battery recycling system model, and builds a waste power battery recycling cost model based on cost accounting. The problems encountered in reverse supply chain recycling and relevant countermeasures are proposed, which has important theoretical and practical significance for promoting the development of waste and new energy power battery recycling industry in Shandong Province.

Research on recycling benefits of spent lithium batteries with parameter uncertain: Application to adjust incentive policy

The sales of new energy vehicles continue to grow, the problem of recycling spent lithium battery has become the focus. In this work, a cost-income model for recycling spent lithium batteries is established considering the cascade utilization and valuable metal extraction. The cost model is divided into three stages: initial investment cost, operation and maintenance cost, and valued metal extraction cost. The income indicators includes government subsidies and residual value. There is uncertainty in the recycling process of spent lithium batteries due to the volatile market price, immature recycling technology and large differences in regional systems. In order to solve the uncertainty of recycling spent lithium battery, the concept and algorithm of gray number are introduced in this work to calculate the economic benefits. The construction of the economic benefit model of the spent lithium battery can help investors to make decisions and help the government to adjust the incentive policy to ensure the economic benefit of the spent lithium battery recycling system.

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Method for Disassembly Sequential Task Optimization Based on Human–Robot Collaborative Disassembly in Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling

Abstract With the wide application of new Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries in various industrial fields, it is important to establish a systematic intelligent battery recycling system that can be used to find out the resource wastes and environmental impacts of the retired EV battery. By combining the uncertain and dynamic disassembly and echelon utilization of EV battery recycling in the remanufacturing fields, human–robot collaboration (HRC) disassembly method can be used to solve huge challenges about the efficiency of retired EV battery recycling. In order to find out the disassembly task planning based on HRC disassembly process for retired EV battery recycling, a dynamic disassembly sequential task optimization method algorithm is proposed by Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL). Furthermore, it is necessary to disassemble the retired EV battery disassembly trajectory based on the HRC disassembly task in 2D planar, which can be used to acquire the optimal disassembly paths in the same disassembly planar by combining the Q-learning algorithm. The disassembly task sequence can be completed through standard trajectory matching. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method is verified by disassembly operations for a specific battery module case.

Optimal configuration of electric vehicle battery recycling system under across-network cooperation

As many electric vehicle (EV) batteries are quickly approaching their end-of-life, it has become urgent for firms to establish EV battery recycling networks. Although prior studies have extensively discussed EV battery network designs, they have rarely analyzed the configuration of recycling networks from the across-network cooperation perspective. To address the research gap, we investigate the cooperative configuration decision of an EV battery recycling system that includes an incumbent EV manufacturer and an entrant based on two schemes: with or without across-network cooperation. To examine the differences between these two schemes, we develop a stylized configuration model for the incumbent and the entrant with mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) that simultaneously incorporates carbon emission and government penalty. Applying a Lagrange heuristic algorithm to derive an optimal solution, we then perform simulations using realistic profiles. Our findings show that across-network cooperation effectively lowers the recycling network configuration cost for both the incumbent (decreased by 3.57% and 4.22% under the partial and full cooperation) and the entrant (dropped by 7.98% and 10.25% under the partial and full cooperation). Besides, the incumbent setting a proper processing cost coefficient can reduce its total cost, thus attracting the entrant to join in the across-network cooperation. The result also reveals that the entrant inclines to carry out the across-network cooperation in the infant stage rather than in the mature stage. Finally, although the government’s severe punishment has a positive impact on developing both EV manufacturers’ recycling networks, this kind of non-market intervention impairs the likelihood of across-network cooperation between EV manufacturers.

Literature Review on Power Battery Echelon Reuse and Recycling from a Circular Economy Perspective.

Developing new energy vehicles (NEVs) is necessary to grow the low-carbon vehicle industry. Many concentrated end-of-life (EoL) power batteries will cause large-scale environmental pollution and safety accidents when the time comes to replace the first generation of batteries if improper recycling and disposal methods are utilized. Significant negative externalities will result for the environment and other economic entities. When recycling EoL power batteries, some countries need to solve problems about lower recycling rates, unclear division of echelon utilization scenarios, and incomplete recycling systems. Therefore, this paper first analyzes representative countries' power battery recycling policies and finds out the reasons for the low recycling rate in some countries. It is also found that echelon utilization is the critical link to EoL power battery recycling. Secondly, this paper summarizes the existing recycling models and systems to form a complete closed-loop recycling process from the two stages of consumer recycling and corporate disposal of batteries. The policies and recycling technologies are highly concerned with echelon utilization, but few studies focus on analyzing application scenarios of echelon utilization. Therefore, this paper combines cases to delineate the echelon utilization scenarios clearly. Based on this, the 4R EoL power battery recycling system is proposed, which improves the existing recycling system and can recycle EoL power batteries efficiently. Finally, this paper analyzes the existing policy problems and existing technical challenges. Based on the actual situation and future development trends, we propose development suggestions from the government, enterprises, and consumers to achieve the maximum reused of EoL power batteries.

Analysis on the Current China NEV Traction Battery Recycling System and Suggestions for Future Improvement

In order to learn about the implementation of the policy on the establishment of the corporate recycling system, to gain an accurate grasp of the current status of China’s NEV traction battery recycling system, and to help improve China’s traction battery recycling system, this paper analyzes in detail the current status of the establishment of the recycling system as well as existing problems in terms of scale, standardized establishment, and so on, and puts forward targeted suggestions for improvement.

Battery recycling system starts to take shape

Battery recycling system starts to take shape

Battery recycling system starts to take shape

Battery recycling system starts to take shape

Comparative evaluation for recycling waste power batteries with different collection modes based on Stackelberg game

The new energy vehicle industry is booming, but the subsequent problem of vehicle power batteries’ “scrap tide” is still severe. How to establish and improve the end-of-life power battery recycling system to avoid the “catastrophic” environmental consequences has become an urgent global problem needing a solution. This article constructs three recycling models for manufacturer recycling, retailer recycling, and mixed recycling. By using Stackelberg game and market real data, the influence of carbon trading policy outside the supply chain, power battery endurance capacity and advertising effects within the supply chain on the selection of recycling channels was studied. The results showed: (1) Different recycling channels did not affect the wholesale price, retail price, and market demand for raw material power batteries in the positive supply chain; (2) The total profit function of manufacturers and retailers had a “U-shaped” non-linear relationship with power battery endurance capacity and has a positive linear relationship with the advertising effect. Taking the R&D endurance capacity of 0.4 and the total endurance capacity of 62 kWh as the lowest dividing point, it will decrease first and then increase; (3) The increase in the recycling competition coefficient had a greater impact on the consumption of carbon emission rights in the mixed recycling model than on savings in carbon emission rights, and retailers were the indirect “victims” of rising carbon trading prices; (4) Endurance capacity, advertising effects, and carbon trading prices determined the economics of the recycling model and the carbon emission reduction potential. Manufacturers, retailers, and governments can refer to the value range of each variable to select the most appropriate recycling mode.

The impacts of critical metal shortage on China's electric vehicle industry development and countermeasure policies

Electric vehicle (EV) has been taken as the key technology in the road transportation sector to achieve the carbon neutrality target. However, considering China's critical metal resource endowment as well as its supply status, the potential metal supply shortage and its impact on China's EV industry development goal need to be analyzed. Therefore, in the present study, several supply and recycling scenarios are proposed and a dynamic stock-flow model is adopted to calculate the impacts of potential critical metal shortages including nickel, cobalt, and lithium and their countermeasures. The obtained results show that: i) The current resource endowment in China cannot meet the metal demand for EV industry development target. From 2022 to 2050, the metal shortage will cut the accumulative EV production potential by 459.7–384.6 million units, leading to extra greenhouse gas emissions; ii) In terms of specific metal types, the shortage of lithium will occur in 2026 and 2034 under different metal supply scenarios, which will hinder the EV production significantly; iii) In total, there are 101.9–190.8 Kt, 20.3–38.1 Kt, and 40.2–78.9 Kt nickel, cobalt, and lithium resource can be obtained from battery recycling system under different scenarios. However, the metal shortage issue still exists even under the highest recycling ratio scenario. The findings of this study are significant for policymakers to further understand the nexus between emission abatement and mineral conservation in the process of EV industry development and propose relevant policies.

Evaluation and Selection of Battery Swap Operation Mode of New Energy Vehicles

With the advantages of "vehicle-electricity separation", effectively shortening the replenishment time, relieving users' mileage anxiety, and facilitating the perfection of power battery recycling system, new energy vehicle battery swap has become an important research direction to respond to the government's "low carbon" policy and promote the development of new energy vehicle industry. In this paper, we analyze the differences in the supply chain structure of the three battery swap models led by car manufacturers, battery manufacturers and battery swap operators, and build models of battery swap operation under three different power structures based on the actual market situation. Using the combination of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE), we use the questionnaires and expert evaluation methods to evaluate and analyze the input and output of the battery swap enterprises, supply chain risk resilience and competitiveness of new energy vehicles under the three different supply chain structures. We compare and conclude that the battery swap model dominated by battery enterprises is generally better than the other two battery swap operation models, then we analyze and conclude the advantages of different operation modes in order to draw some management insights.

(Invited) The ReCell Center: Making Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Profitable

ReCell, a Department of Energy managed program led by Argonne National Laboratory, is working to develop and scale, battery recycling technologies that improve the economics of responsible end-of-life lithium-ion battery management beyond where they are today. Four focus areas are targeted: direct cathode recycling, recovery of non-cathode materials, design for sustainability, and modeling and analysis. This presentation will provide a brief summary of ReCell’s work to create a profitable battery recycling system as well as some examples of its progress.

Life cycle assessment on the reuse and recycling of the nickel‐metal hydride battery: Fleet‐based study on hybrid vehicle batteries from Japan

AbstractWith the increasing popularity of hybrid vehicles, which were initially commercialized from Japan, the use of nickel‐metal hydride (NiMH) batteries has also increased dramatically. This will inevitably lead to a large number of NiMH batteries in the future. This makes the reuse and recycling of these waste NiMH batteries an urgent concern. Nevertheless, the environmental burden generated from the reuse and recycling processes has not been clarified. Moreover, many NiMH batteries are exported from Japan to developing countries and will eventually be landfilled. Such problems severely weaken the efficiency of the waste battery recycling system in Japan. This research aims to analyze the environmental impact of a NiMH battery under each type of waste treatment strategy using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Then, a fleet‐based LCA is performed to show how exactly the collection rate of waste batteries affects the efficiency of the recycling industry. The results show that, if we can reuse or recycle a waste NiMH battery instead of it being directly landfilled, the absolute environmental impact of the NiMH battery can be decreased. Especially in the reuse and recycle scenario, approximately 83 kg of CO2 emissions, 1.37 kg of resource depletion, 0.044 m3 of landfill volume, and 1611 MJ energy consumption will be conserved for each NiMH battery. Moreover, the efficiency of the Japanese recycling industry would significantly improve if more waste NiMH batteries can be recycled or reused in Japan instead of being exported to developing countries.

The Impacts of Critical Metal Shortage on China's Electric Vehicle Industry Development and Countermeasure Policies

Electric vehicle has been taken as the key technology in road transportation sector to achieve carbon neutrality. However, considering China’s critical metal resource endowment, the impacts of potential metal supply shortage on the EV industry development goal need to be considered. Therefore, in the present study, a dynamic stock-flow model is proposed to calculate the impacts of potential critical metal shortages (including Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium) and the countermeasures’ roles. The obtained results show that: i) The current resource endowment in China cannot meet the metal demand for electric vehicle industry development target. From 2020 to 2050, metal shortage may cut the accumulative electric vehicle production potential by 63.3 million units, leading to 23.8 Bt extra greenhouse gas emissions; ii) In terms of specific metal types, Lithium and Nickel shortage will happen in 2032 and 2037; iii) There are 87-200.1 Kt, 17.4 - 40 Kt, and 32.8 - 72.8 Kt Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium resource respectively can be obtained from battery recycling system under different scenarios. The findings of this study are significant for policy makers to further understand the nexus between emission abatement and mineral conservation in the electric vehicle industry development and propose relevant polices.

Driving Mechanism of Power Battery Recycling Systems in Companies.

In recent years, international environmental and public health research has become a hot topic, and battery recycling, which is often mentioned separately from waste disposal, has likewise become an academic topic. Battery recycling research is beneficial not only for controlling toxic and harmful substances, but also for public health. In addition, battery recycling brings value-added benefits to company management. As the most important link in the battery supply chain, the driving mechanism of battery recycling in the new electric vehicle industry will become particularly important. The subject of battery recycling is diverse, and the relationships among influencing factors are complex, thereby presenting a fluctuating state. Against this background, this study constructs a system dynamics model from the perspective of a main sorting and recycling system, a technological innovation subsystem and a replacement subsystem. Moreover, this study examines the driving mechanism of the power battery recycling system of a microlevel company. Focusing on the systematic impact of technological innovation capability and substitution, we find that the technological innovation drive of companies increases the total effect of required costs and product demands. It is embodied in two aspects, that is, the increase in the recovery rate leads to an increase in demand, whereas the increase in actual expenditures is less than the increase in technology-driven benefits. After technological innovation capability is improved, the effect of the technological innovation multiplier on the driving mechanism of companies is shown as rapid response time changes. In the substitution component of a company recycling system, we find that the maximum substitution rate limiting expectations has no significant impact on product differentiation. The leading effect of technological innovation capability is more obvious than that of substitution activity. Based on these findings, several suggestions for company operation and environmental governance are presented.

Research on the location of waste battery recycling center for new energy vehicles based on a heuristic algorithm of greedy take-off

The peak period for the decommissioning of new energy vehicle power batteries in China is approaching, and it is imminent to establish a complete and efficient waste battery recycling system. In order to improve the recovery efficiency of waste batteries in China, this paper constructs a new type of waste battery recovery system, and proposes a new method to solve the location problem of the waste battery recovery center by using a method of goal ranking and a heuristic algorithm of greedy take-off. The grey prediction method of amplitude compression is used to simulate and predict the total battery recycling amount of each recycling station in a city, and then establishing a dual-target location model with the goal of maximizing total revenue and optimizing brand serviceability. Finally, the model is solved by the heuristic algorithm of greedy take-off to obtain the optimal location scheme of recycling center, which proves the feasibility of the model.

Analysis of Lithium Battery Recycling System of New Energy Vehicles under Low Carbon Background

China’s new energy vehicle sales exceeded 1 million units for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. China has actually become the world’s largest new energy vehicle production and sales market. Batteries are the core components of new energy vehicles. The current research and development of power batteries mainly include lead-acid batteries, nickel metal batteries, lithium batteries, super capacitors, fuel cells, solar cells, etc. Among them, lithium batteries are one of the main application categories in the current market. Due to the limited life of lithium batteries, the earliest batch of new energy vehicle lithium batteries in the market is at the threshold of elimination. How to effectively recycle and use lithium batteries has become an unavoidable environmental and social issue. This paper first briefly introduces the current status of China’s new energy vehicle and battery industry, then analyzes the problems of China’s new energy vehicle battery recycling system, and finally, puts forward some suggestions based on China’s national conditions and industry status.

Analysis on Present Situation of Construction of Recycling Service Outlets for NEV Traction Battery

In order to promote the NEV manufacturers and the echelon using enterprises to implement the responsibility of wasted traction battery recycling, to standardize the construction of the traction battery recycling service outlets, and to improve the construction level of the traction battery recycling system, this paper studies and interprets the functional requirements of the recycling service outlets in combination with the present construction situation of the recycling service outlets, analyzes the problems existing in the construction of the recycling service outlets from the aspects of site construction and standard operation, and puts forward some specific suggestions.

Integrating offline logistics and online system to recycle e-bicycle battery in China

Abstract E-bicycles are powered by batteries including lithium-ion, lead–acid, and others. The reuse of waste batteries shows promise for grid-scale storage. The New National Standard for e-bicycles is to be introduced in China, that might result in the country becoming the largest source of battery waste in the world. If the waste batteries are not recycled appropriately, it will cause significant heavy metal pollution, which will in turn, pose a serious threat to the ecological environment and human health. This paper discusses the current status of recycling of e-bicycle batteries in China and reviews the current recycling approaches. We developed a waste e-bicycle battery recycling system based on “Internet+” to solve the dilemma of recycling end-of-life batteries; this system has three subsystems: offline reverse logistics recovery system, online network recycling system, and traceability management system. In particular, the participation of consumers and government, reward-penalty mechanism, “Internet +” development, and other strategies are considered to improve recycling systems throughout life cycle of the products. The proposed recycling system can increase the waste battery recycling rate by 2.59% under the reward-penalty mechanism, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 58%, which is conducive to promoting sustainable development.