World Power Battery Conference: The Development of Batteries from the Perspective of Raw Materials (NMP)

The activities that people in the new energy industry are most concerned about include the World Power Battery Conference held in Yibin, Sichuan Province recently. Among them, Mr. Cheng Huiming, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,  gave a keynote speech on battery development from the perspective of resources. (NMP is also one of the raw materials in the battery preparation process) Why is carbon neutrality required globally? Why can China take advantage of the opportunity of carbon neutrality to change lanes to overtake and lead the world? This is all related to the raw materials and resources for battery preparation.

Academician Cheng Huiming said that to realize the rapid development of the new energy industry and batteries, to transform the energy structure, and to achieve carbon neutrality, the development and comprehensive utilization of renewable energy is the most fundamental way;

That is, the problem of resources, the problem of raw materials.

At present, the demand of market is still rising, but resources such as lithium, nickel and cobalt are in short supply and are facing a situation of running out. How to break through? Still have to start from the resource aspect. Therefore, the recycling and reuse of materials such as lithium-ion batteries has been put on the agenda, and many companies have already started from this aspect. Even the NMP solvent (specially used in the lithium-ion battery industry) produced and supplied by the Zesheng New Materials team follows the environmental protection rule of recycling to avoid resource waste.

Regarding battery recycling, Academician Cheng Huiming and his team have conducted in-depth exploration on the recycling and reuse of dual-ion batteries, multivalent ion batteries and lithium-ion battery materials.

Take a look at what Academician Cheng Huiming introduced:

【Double-ion battery】

The negative electrode has a low specific capacity and limited energy density; the material structure is unstable and the cycle life is short; a lithium-containing electrolyte is required, so it is still limited by resources.

“It is an emerging energy storage technology, an international emerging technology, with advantages such as low cost and easy recycling.”

“On this basis, we proposed a new mechanism of alloying synergistic energy storage, and developed a new type of aluminum-graphite dual-ion battery, whose energy density is basically the same as that of lithium iron phosphate battery, and the cost is comparable to that of lead-acid battery.”

【Multivalent ion batteries】

Compared with lithium-based negative electrodes, multivalent metal negative electrodes have high specific capacity and relatively high density, so they can have high volumetric energy density; Aluminum is one of the ten most abundant elements in the earth’s crust. Batteries made from these elements can have low cost and high safety features. In other words, the potential of multivalent ion batteries in the future is huge.

Of course, this type of battery still has a series of unsolved problems, such as positive/negative electrode materials, electrolytes, interface films, etc.

【Battery recycling】

Regarding battery recycling, the thinking of Academician Cheng Huiming and his team is different from the traditional one. They put forward new insights into traditional dry and wet recycling, and the collision of ideas can indeed bring about a great degree of sublimation. See how their recycling solutions are different:

• The idea of recycling is direct, from obtaining elemental elements to obtaining compounds, and indirect recycling to direct recycling.
• The recycling process is closed, and the conversion of exogenous reagents to internal sources is used. For example, the positive and negative materials are recycled together, and the lithium of the negative electrode is taken out and supplemented to the positive electrode.
• The recovered products are functionalized, such as NiMnCo recovered from discarded Li-ion batteries to prepare nanocatalysts to catalyze Zn-air batteries.

Just like our NMP waste gas recovery equipment, in order to avoid waste of resources and harm the environment and human health, the Zesheng team tailored NMP waste gas recovery equipment for the cooperating lithium-ion battery factory. These low-purity NMP solutions will be further purified for recycling. Save resources while protecting the environment. For specific solutions, you can leave a message for consultation.

Of course, this World Power Battery Conference has more than one topic, more discussion topics, welcome to pay attention, the editor will continue to organize and select them to share with you.