Before moving to the recycling of a battery the following options should be considered:
- Repair
- Remanufacture
- Repurpose
- Recycling
This approach can reduce cost, impact on the customer and most importantly the impact on the planet.
Batteries are not emissions and toxic waste free and so the life cycle analysis (LCA) must be considered from cradle to grave.
1. Repair
Battery packs are made from a large number of parts. Often it is not the battery cells that fail and hence a repair or replacement of the failed part is logical.
2. Remanufacture
If the battery pack fails in your car it is costly to replace it with a brand new battery. One alternative is to replace it with a battery that has been remanufactured. This remanufactured pack might have been assembled using good cells/modules from a number of older battery packs. It will have been tested and will often come with some form of warranty.
This is a smart way to reduce the environmental impact.
3. Repurpose
Second Life of Batteries for Electric Vehicles
What is Second life of Batteries? Batteries have or will have a lifecycle of 10-15 years in Electric vehicles. Batteries need to be replaced in Electric Vehicles as per OEM advice once they fall to between 80% to 70% of their original capacity. But these batteries will have sufficient life left in them for other applications even at 70% to 80% capacity.
4. Recycle
State of Battery Recycling: Can we meet our LIB recycling obligations by 2030?
In the European Union, the draft of the new Battery Directive sets LIBs for electric vehicles as a new battery classification, with a set of requirements to minimize their carbon footprint. The average LIB recycling target will be approximately 70% by 2030, with the aim to recover 70% of lithium and 95% of nickel, copper, and cobalt in end-of-life batteries.
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Battery Recycling: A Need of the hour
Lithium Ion Batteries of today use raw materials such as Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Manganese, Graphite, Aluminum. Some of them are classified as Critically rare according to a EU study.