Electric Car Battery Refurbishment

In an electric car, a battery’s life continues after its initial supply has been depleted. Batteries actually have a tone of potential for reuse in stationary energy storage, adding value along the way. They can also aid in the grid integration of additional renewable energy by lowering the cost of storage.

Electric Car Battery Refurbishment is an option as an alternative to reuse, and it can make sense for battery manufacturers who want to secure high-value metals like cobalt and nickel and who can achieve refurbishing costs competitive with mining. Mass disposal is an option as well, and it is permitted in most regions under health and safety regulations.

Electric cars lithium-ion batteries typically have a ten-year lifespan but see severe degradation in the first five years of use.

However, even after ten years of use, an electric vehicle battery can still be used in markets that demand stationary energy storage but less frequent riding (especially 100-300 cycles per year).

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Everything you need to know about Electric Car Battery Refurbishment

Refurbishing electric car batteries involves gathering, processing, and making used batteries useful again while minimizing the number of batteries disposed of in landfills.

It is common knowledge that environmentally friendly battery materials provide hope for a greener future.

The battery reconditioning procedure prevents used batteries from ending up in landfills and guarantees a steady supply of priceless raw materials for battery production.

Additionally, refurbished batteries increase the affordability and sustainability of Electric cars while reducing the reliance on new mineral resources.

We are witnessing unheard-of growth in the Electric cars market as Electric cars adoption rises as a result of governmental mandates, rising gas prices, technology breakthroughs, and other things.

This will result in a future issue when there are too many Electric cars batteries, and they need a safe place to go.

Battery type	Year	Cost (US$/kWh)
Li-ion	2021	132[38]
Li-ion	2016	130[39]-145[35]
Li-ion	2014	200–300[40]
Li-ion	2012	500–600[41]
Li-ion	2012	400[42]
Li-ion	2012	520–650[43]
Li-ion	2012	752[43]
Li-ion	2012	689[43]
Li-ion	2013	800–1000[44]
Li-ion	2010	750[45]
Nickel–metal hydride	2004	750[46]
Nickel–metal hydride	2013	500–550[44]
Nickel–metal hydride		350[47]
Lead–acid		256.68

1.Spotlight is now again on refurbishing Electric cars batteries.

The domain that was previously ignored is now taking center stage.

To prevent raw material shortages and strengthen the Electric car supply chain for the single most expensive component—the electric car battery—interest in Electric car battery reconditioning is increasing.

Because electric automobiles use cutting-edge battery management systems (BMS) to maintain Electric car battery life and efficiency, Electric car lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) last significantly longer than phone or laptop batteries.

Trains and airplanes travel for many million km before being scrapped. Why do passenger vehicles only last 100-200 000 km? (motor wear and tear)
With highly efficient electric vehicles, battery swaps, and some refurbishment of the car's interior, much more should be possible! pic.twitter.com/i4XVSncfFv

— Stefan Pauliuk (@StefanPauliuk) December 4, 2022

2.A Limited Supply and Increased Demand for Battery Metals

The market for reconditioning Electric car batteries is anticipated to reach USD 5.30 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 31.6%, but by 2030, it is anticipated that 11 million tons of used lithium-ion batteries will be turned into battery scrap due to the Electric car transition.

Refurbishing millions of tons of lithium-ion batteries provides an equally significant issue as the large manufacture of electric vehicle batteries. Dr. Elisabeth Gorman, a specialist in lithium refurbishing at Evonik, reveals that the current lithium refurbishing rate is less than 5%.

People used to worry that Electric car batteries would not last very long. We must make sure that the capacity for battery reconditioning keeps up with the influx of batteries that are approaching the end of their useful lives.

Because Electric car batteries last longer than anticipated (potentially outliving the vehicles) and even have a valuable second life.

Because many automakers provide Electric car batteries with a 6- to 10-year or 100,000-mile warranty, it’s possible that the batteries aren’t yet ready to be refurbished in significant quantities.

This helps to explain why it’s possible that the automobile industry could have a severe shortage of raw materials.

In brief, the scarcity of significant quantities of refurbish able components is a concern due to the restricted number of refurbish able battery packs.

Refurbished Batteries:  

3.The Secret to Sustainable Electric car Production

An effective and environmentally friendly substitute for primary raw material extraction is battery refurbishing. A study reveals that by 2040, refurbished materials may provide more than 50% of the cobalt, lithium, and nickel in new batteries.

About 60% of the entire cost of making an Electric car battery is attributed to the cost of the raw materials. It is deemed more practical to refurbish the electric car every twenty years and reuse the battery rather than purchasing a new one.

Are refurbished batteries the secret to environmentally friendly Electric car production? Most certainly

The recovery of limited raw materials from refurbished old Electric car batteries, which constitute a predominant secondary source of crucial materials, is all the more significant because access to strategic battery components is not available in many regions.

Lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, and nickel-metal hydride are additional refurbished batteries used in electric cars in addition to lithium-ion batteries.

Several of the refurbished battery chemistries are as follows:

Lead Acid

Lithium Ion

Lithium Iron Phosphate

Nickel Iron

Telecom Lead Acid

Wet & Dry Nickel Cadmium

Wet & Dry Nickel Metal Hydride

In order to handle and treat lithium-ion batteries—the most common type of battery used in electric car batteries—properly, battery waste management is crucial. For refurbishes, end-of-service/retired Electric car batteries provide a significant waste management concern.

Battery producers are required by some laws, such as the extended producer responsibility (EPR), to collect, store, transport, refurbish, and discard spent batteries.

The ability to collect, store, and refurbish battery waste is ultimately what determines the effectiveness of a battery refurbished system.

4.The Value of Reusing, Refurbishing, and Repurposing Electric car Batteries

The circular lithium-ion battery economy is a sustainable battery industry that focuses on reusing and reconditioning Electric car batteries.

To maximize their functional capacity, end-of-life Electric car batteries can typically be recycled, repaired, and repurposed before being completely rebuilt.

Reuse

Utilize an electric car battery to its fullest potential by reusing. When an electric vehicle has reached its “reuse potential,” it is regarded as suitable for repurposing.

Refurbishing and Repurposing

Second-life batteries can be immediately refurbished or renovated (2LBs). Before reselling the batteries as “semi-new,” refurbishing entails replacing worn-out or broken battery components.

It is less expensive to recycle used Electric car batteries for less demanding uses like stationary energy storage than to refurbish them, which takes a lot of time, effort, and money.

An Electric car battery tends to lose its ability to give the anticipated range once its energy-generating capacity hits 70–80% of its initial capacity.

However, these batteries can be recycled for extensive use in electrical grids, storage of renewable energy (like wind and solar), and other uses like flood warning signs in road warning systems.

Typically, a battery with a life expectancy of less than 70% is employed as an energy storage system (ESS) battery for residential and commercial applications.

Large energy storage devices can use a number of Electric car batteries to store electricity and stabilize the power grid.

The world-famous Amsterdam Areena (now known as the “Johan Cruyff Arena), which serves as the home of Ajax football club, is powered by Nissan’s retired Electric car batteries.

Is it simple to recycle Electric car batteries? It is difficult to achieve consistency across global manufacturers since a battery pack’s mechanical and chemical complexity can differ.

Company	TRL Level	Country	Technology	Capacity (tones)
Akkuser Oy	Commercial	Finland	Mechanical	1000
fortum	Commercial	Finland	Mechanical, thermal treatment and hydro
umicore	Commercial	Belgium	Pyro and Hydro	7000
tithion	Commercial	Canada	Mechanical	2500
li-cycle	Pilot	Canada	Mechanical	7500
retriev Technologies	Pilot	United States	Mechanical	4500
Accurec	Commercial	Germany	Mechanical and thermal Treatment	2500
Valdi	Commercial	France	Mechanical and hydro	20 000
GEM High-Tech	Commercial	China	Mechanical and hydro	10 000
Brunp	Commercial	China	Mechanical and hydro	25 000 – 30 000
JX Nippon Mining and Metals	Commercial	Japan	Pyro and Hydro	5000
NorthVolt	Pilot	Sweden	Mechanical and hydro

5.Regulations for Electric car Battery Refurbishing

1.Given the pressing requirement to reuse battery raw materials in the production cycle, legislation is required to set realistic goals for battery reconditioning.

2.To promote local procurement of battery materials and battery production, numerous battery reuse and refurbishing rules are in place.

3.According to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), more than 40% of the primary materials used in battery construction must be mined and processed in North America and other regions covered by the U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

4.Refurbishing batteries helps local battery manufacturers become less dependent on imports and suppliers from abroad.

5.The Strategic Electric Car Management Act is a measure that addresses this issue and seeks to increase Electric car battery refurbishment and reuse for federal fleet cars.

6.How Electric Car Battery refurbishing Works

Refurbishing an Electric car battery is neither cheap nor simple. In addition, the refurbishment procedure requires a lot of work and resources and complex refurbishing logistics.

Separating battery components including aluminum, cobalt and lithium salts, copper, and stainless steel is typically a part of reconditioning.

The majority of refurbishing procedures fall under the “reagent recovery” umbrella, where components of a suitable purity can be recycled for use in other applications as well as the resynthesis of the original cathode materials.

Electric car batteries are made up of over 2,000 different lithium-ion battery cells, whose makeup and dimensions differ from vehicle to vehicle. Systems for large-scale battery reconditioning can restore thousands of batteries.

It is difficult to disassemble big lithium-ion battery packs with dozens of components and widely disparate designs, making current battery pack designs unsuitable for deconstruction, either manually or mechanically.

Since significant machinery is required to disassemble and shred lithium-ion batteries, commercial cell-breaking methods (physical) use milling or shredding with subsequent separation of the component materials.

Different companies use various methods to refurbish batteries. To prevent any fires or injuries, the first step is to render the battery inert.  After shredding, the next steps are taken to sort the materials (depending on size) into the following groups:

Ferrous Materials

Materials made of non-ferrous metals (sometimes referred to as “black mass” since they contain vital minerals like cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel)

Electric cars aren’t pollution-free; they have to get their energy from somewhere.

–Alexandra Paul

The Procedures for Refurbishing Electric Car Batteries.

1.Processes Involving Pyrometallurgy and Hydrometallurgy:

Using pyrometallurgical (smelting) and hydrometallurgical (leaching) procedures, a few battery refurbishing businesses specialize in LIB refurbishing.

With up to 99% purity of the recovered materials and a material recovery rate of up to 95%, LIB refurbishing makes them acceptable for reuse in the creation of new batteries.

Service	System Description	Size
Peak Shaving	System builds from used Nissan Leaf packs charges from a photovoltaic array, then discharges on a constant cycle from 16h00-20h00	287kWh
Increased consumption of onsite renewables	Excess energy produced by onsite solar is stored in repurposed Renault Kingoo batteries, then discharged when demand is higher than supply.	95 kWh
Frequency regulation	In collaboration with the local utility, 1920 used modules are assembled at a retired coal plant to supply balancing power to the grid.	9.8 MWh
Telecom tower (backup)	China Tower plans to replace lead-acid with used Electric car batteries to provide backup power for telecom towers (they operate close to 2 million across China)	30 kWh per tower; 54 GWh potential.

2.The electrochemical procedure

Evonik, a manufacturer of specialty chemicals, is exploring a high-efficiency electrochemical method using a ceramic membrane for refurbishing lithium; the business intends to produce pilot modules in 2023 and bigger modules in 2024.

3.Process for repairing lithium-ion batteries:

The method of repairing a lithium-ion battery involves gathering old or extra batteries, deactivating them, then disassembling and treating the batteries mechanically.

Additionally, the hydrometallurgical process (leaching) directly recovers metals including Co, Li, Mn, and Ni by using hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid.

Direct renovation:

Direct refurbishing entails extracting the electrode’s anode or cathode material for reconditioning and reuse in a remanufactured LIB. This method saves costly and time-consuming purifying stages.

Additionally, by skipping the mining and processing stages, direct refurbishing of materials from used lithium-ion batteries reduces energy consumption and waste.

4.The management of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries includes battery refurbishing.

The current Electric car battery supply chain is a convoluted network that significantly raises costs and increases carbon footprint.

Refurbishing Electric car batteries establishes a closed-loop system that enables the recycling of cost-effective and environmentally friendly battery components.

5.Battery Disposal Safely

Electric car batteries are prepared for safe disposal once they can no longer be repaired. Car batteries, however, must be properly rehabilitated as opposed to being disposed of in the trash or a dumpster.

Battery refurbishes of America, for instance, offers refurbishing plans for big quantities (60 or more) of automobile batteries. Risks are always present when handling or disposing of hazardous material irresponsibly.

For instance, disposing of used lithium-ion batteries in landfills or metal recycling plants may result in the batteries exploding spontaneously or releasing dangerous metals into the groundwater.

Waste management requirements apply to the handling, storage, transportation, processing, reconditioning, and disposal of batteries because they fall under the category of “hazardous waste.”

Advantages of Electric Car Battery Restoration

Strategic, financial, and environmental advantages come from battery reconditioning. Additionally, it aids in preventing the production process and the end of a battery’s useful life from releasing harmful elements into the waste stream.

Refurbishing Electric car Batteries is Essential for:

• Reducing the need for destructive mining techniques (for sourcing lithium and other minerals)
• Ensuring the long-term supply of lithium
• Reducing the quantity of mining required for the creation of Electric cars.
• Recovering useful amounts of metals is less expensive than mining.
• Reducing basic resource consumption and emissions from battery manufacturing
• Minimizing the effects of hazardous waste on the environment
• Enhancing domestic production (using local, refurbished battery materials)
• Aiding the world’s energy transition (environmentally friendly refurbishing)

Batteries are often taken for further processing from authorized battery refurbishing firms to battery collection centers.

Apart from wasted batteries, lithium-ion refurbishment businesses like Atter handle recalled battery packs. It is possible to reuse lithium-ion battery trash, which is repairable in over 50% of cases, to create new lithium-ion batteries.

Opportunities for Repairing Electric Car Batteries.

The practice of “waste battery reconditioning” is expanding quickly since the reduction in battery capacity and performance during charge cycles has no impact on the extraction and redistribution of essential raw materials like nickel and lithium.

Many businesses are investing in Electric car battery refurbishing and in research that focuses on effective and affordable Electric car battery refurbishing.

Battery production is entirely automated, but battery refurbishing is entirely human, claims Wesley Zheng, co-founder of Posh, a business for Electric car battery refurbishing automation.

Battery technology startups and battery refurbishing businesses have a chance to advance and set the course for upcoming partnerships and investments by automating the battery refurbishing process.

Financial incentives are also useful in promoting investments in LIB refurbishment.

Automakers, battery makers, battery refurbishes, OEMs, politicians, and many more have come together because of the prospects in refurbishment.

Therefore, it is not unexpected that battery reuse and refurbishing businesses and car manufacturers are utilizing industrial synergies to innovate on Electric car battery refurbishing.

R&D on Electric Car Battery Restoration

Technology and infrastructure for refurbishing Electric car batteries are developing to increase security, sustainability, and recovery rate.

In particular, Electric car battery refurbishing R&D is concentrated on lowering prices and raising yields of Electric car battery refurbishing.

With improved refurbishing capacity and clever industry alliances, Ascend Elements, Redwood Materials, and other battery refurbishing businesses are getting ready to handle the demand for Electric car battery units.

A lithium-ion battery reconditioning & engineering materials firm called Ascend Elements has patented a technology for extracting important Electric car metals and producing a battery cathode that can be tailored to the precise needs of an Electric car maker.

In addition, 93% less carbon emissions were produced throughout the refurbishing process, which cost about half as much as mining new metals.

Industry Partnerships for Electric car Battery Refurbishment

Let’s examine a few collaborations amongst the Electric car battery industry:

Ford and Redwood Materials have a contract for reconditioning Electric car batteries. Redwood Materials is a prospective producer of battery components using recycled materials and has teamed with numerous manufacturers to collect and refurbish end-of-life Electric car batteries.

In order to increase the security of the second-life battery energy storage system (SLBESS) for electric vehicles, the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) and UL (a global safety certification business) are working together.

Electric car Battery Refurbishing Market Growth Drivers

Electric bikes, electric buses, electric cars, electric scooters, energy storage systems, and other applications (such as data centers/UPI, industrial automation, and telecom) make up the global Electric car battery refurbishing industry.

Lithium-ion battery reconditioning has seen considerable increase in recent years thanks to funding and initiatives for batteries.

The market for Electric car battery refurbishing is anticipated to expand in the coming years due to the rising demand for refurbished materials and the sales of electric vehicles.

The Global Lithium-ion Battery Refurbishing Industry study from Blackridge Research & Consulting gives in-depth insights into the competitive landscape, growth factors, important company profiles, market statistics and trends, major innovations, and more. It also provides a thorough market analysis.

 

Challenges in Refurbishing Electric Car Batteries

Material shortages, skyrocketing raw material costs, global trade conflicts, and supply chain bottlenecks are the main problems influencing Electric car production.

The move from planning to production for a mine typically takes 16.5 years, making it challenging to scale up mining operations to meet the spike in demand.

Furthermore, because the majority of minerals required in Electric car manufacture are only found in a few nations, the supply chain is susceptible to interruptions and volatility.

While the market for Electric car battery refurbishing is primarily driven by the surge in demand for zero-emission vehicles and reconditioned materials, there are several significant obstacles to overcome.

• High initial investments
• High transportation costs of refurbishing
• Shortage of worn-out batteries
• Dismantling, storing, and manual testing of batteries.
• Chemical separation processes
• Illegal battery refurbishing

To increase economic and environmental savings, another key challenge is creating a system of shared battery collections among many OEMs and refurbishes.

Electric car battery reconditioning must stay up with the continually changing battery chemistries and sizes as the Electric car market expands.

Additional factors that can enhance Electric car battery refurbishing include improved sorting technologies and process flexibility, simple access to Electric car refurbishing options, increased battery manufacturer standardization, and regulatory stability.

Conclusion

• The development of electric cars fundamentally altered the automotive sector, which now works feverishly to decarbonize transportation and enhance air quality to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
• With annual Electric car sales growth, more Electric cars will be retiring and making up a larger portion of the repairing stream in the upcoming years. To deal with the accumulated load of electric vehicle waste, the market for Electric cars faces scale-related issues.
• Electric car batteries are ready to be reconditioned after their initial use (as a car battery) and their second usage (reuse and repurposing).
• With a useful life of several decades in the future, stationary power storage devices for residential and commercial structures have a significant growth potential.
• The reconditioning of end-of-service Electric car batteries, on the other hand, plays a crucial role in maximizing material use, minimizing the scarcity of necessary raw materials, and lowering the Electric car industry’s reliance on ecologically damaging mining.
• The market for reconditioning Electric car batteries has enormous upside potential in terms of supplying raw materials for the production of new batteries and supporting second-life applications, such as reuse and repurposing.
• Refurbishing Electric car batteries is currently a top priority rather than a future opportunity for the electrified globe.

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