According to a report from the Japan Economic News, Japan ’s Sumitomo Metal Mine (abbreviation: Sumitomo Mine) has recently developed a new metal that recovers rare metal cobalt, which is the main material, from waste lithium-ion batteries equipped in pure electric vehicles (EV), and reuses it as battery material technology. As soon as possible, it will be put into practical use in 2021. Cobalt is one of the indispensable raw materials for batteries, but its production area is limited to Africa, etc. With the popularity of pure electric vehicles, insufficient supply in the future is a most worrying problem. The new technology will set a timetable for the recovery and reuse of cobalt and accelerate the response to supply risks.
Lithium ion batteries are the core components of pure electric vehicles. It consists of positive electrode material, negative electrode material and separator. Cobalt is a material used as a positive electrode material, and plays an important role in stabilizing battery quality such as battery internal temperature.
Sumitomo Mine's smelters in Southeast Asia and other places smelt cobalt from ore and then process it into pure electric vehicle battery materials in Japan, which has advantages in one-stop production. It also supplies to Panasonic and other large automotive battery companies.
This time, when cobalt was extracted from used batteries, high-quality cobalt materials were successfully extracted by controlling the temperature of the molten battery in the best form. With the development of cobalt recycling technology that is worrying about insufficient supply, the guarantee of cobalt is more stable, and it is possible to promote the cost reduction of pure electric vehicles in the future.
Sumitomo Mine established a pilot plant to verify new technologies in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. Remove impurities from the used waste batteries and recover rare metals such as cobalt, nickel and copper. The plan is to first verify the feasibility of a small-scale plant, and then build a new practical chemical plant.
JX Metals and other Japanese competitors are also developing technologies to recycle cobalt from used batteries. However, the technical characteristic of the Sumitomo mine is that it is not simply recycling the cobalt material itself, but in the form of battery materials that can be quickly used in itself or in pure electric vehicles. Eliminating the processing process from cobalt to battery materials, this may also contribute to the cost reduction of pure electric vehicles.
Japanese companies are accelerating the development of pure electric vehicle battery recycling technology, because with the expansion of global pure electric vehicle demand, there is a risk of cobalt shortage. According to data from the survey company Fuji Economy (located in Chuo-ku, Tokyo), global sales of pure electric vehicles are expected to increase to about 7.5 times in 2017, reaching about 5.8 million vehicles. It is expected to increase rapidly with the Chinese market as the center.
On the other hand, from the perspective of cobalt production, the Democratic Republic of the Congo accounts for about 60%, with uneven production areas. It is estimated in the industry that with the popularization of pure electric vehicles in the future, the supply of cobalt will be lower than the demand from 2022.
In addition, cobalt is a by-product of nickel and copper, so increasing cobalt output alone is not easy. Mastering the recycling technology for extracting cobalt from used batteries has become an urgent task as one of the few means to achieve stable supply.
Out of a sense of crisis, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is also taking action. The province has appealed to major domestic automakers and battery companies in Japan to form a common business to promote cobalt in 2019, which is currently being coordinated. Discuss joint procurement and reserve of cobalt, and communicate with each other as needed.
Forecasts by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association show that scrapped vehicles such as pure electric vehicles and other environmentally friendly vehicles will have to wait until 2025.
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