The large-scale retirement of power batteries continues to attract numerous enterprises to the battery recycling industry, with the market size projected to surpass 100 billion yuan (approximately 138 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030.
In 2023, the total volume of retired power batteries exceeded 580,000 tons, according to the China Society of Automotive Engineers. This growing volume has drawn various companies involved in recycling retired power batteries through cascade utilization and reprocessing cycles.
In Quzhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province, the recycled battery packs will be disassembled, with the battery units that show better performance being reexamined and selected for reassembly into new batteries that meet the demands of cascade utilization.
"We will collaborate with partners to gather data on batteries and assess their quality to determine whether they can be used in cascade utilization. The batteries repurposed for cascade utilization are reassembled for applications such as pallet trucks, forklift trucks in factories, and energy storage or solar power integration products," said Bao Wei, manager of a recycling science company in Zhejiang Province.
Many companies in related industries have reported an annual business growth of around 30 percent, accelerating their expansion both domestically and internationally.
"We have two production plants, one in Xiamen and the other in Ganzhou. Both are focused on subdivided sectors that form a closed-loop industrial chain," said Zhu Xiaoming, business director of a recycling company in Xiamen City, east China's Fujian Province.
If retired power batteries do not meet the criteria for cascade utilization, they are sent for reprocessing. In Jingmen, central China's Hubei Province, a battery reprocessing company established last year is capable of processing around 20,000 tons of retired batteries annually. "After separation, the recycling rate of materials increases to over 98 percent. We can completely utilize all of the valuable elements in the batteries," said Wang Jintao, manager of a new material company in Hubei.
According to the manager of this company, the raw materials for their reprocessed batteries mainly come from waste generated by battery manufacturers. The processing capacity of the reprocessing industry currently exceeds the volume of retired batteries available.
"The industry has prepared well in advance to respond to the future boom in battery retirements," said Wang Jintao, manager of a new material company in Hubei.
Latest data shows that the recycling and reuse market for waste batteries is on the rise. It is estimated that the total capacity for cascade utilization and reprocessing in China has surpassed 800,000 tons and 1.8 million tons per year, respectively.
China's battery recycling market soars as power battery retirements surge
China's battery recycling market soars as power battery retirements surge
