Page 31 from: September 2011

31September 2011

B A T T E R I E S

Safety precautions
For battery recyclers, the emphasis on safety

has become ever more important with the

increasing number of more powerful storage

solutions on the market. Many well-known and

fully-compliant recyclers have fallen victim to

battery explosions, mostly through internal

short circuits in stored batteries. A recent warn-

ing shot was fired on August 25 with a fire at

Loddon Recycling, one of the UK’s largest port-

able battery sorters: although the impact was

limited to a single battery storage hall, the

incident demonstrates how batteries can

become ammunition-like fire accelerators.

According to Mr Brouwer, the company has

talked to many fire departments and emergen-

cy advisors about how the risks can be made as

small as possible. ‘We took this into account in

the groundwork on the plant – the lay-out of the

battery recycling plant is such that, if there were

to be a fire, it will not have a devastating result.’

There are many other safety precautions and

procedures employed with the aim of keeping

the risks to a minimum. For example, when

batteries are being transported to Umicore,

they are stored in sand or a salt solution; also,

the battery storage silos at Umicore include

infra-red detection of short circuit activity. At

Umicore, a proprietary discharge process and

the high temperatures used in the melting bath

are said to eliminate any explosive tendencies.

Future developments
Umicore’s new battery recycling plant represents

a long-term investment, and includes some risks

for the Belgian company. There is a trend

towards decreasing the quantities of valuable

materials in new batteries through substitution,

thus entailing a lower volume of valuable mate-

rial entering Umicore’s hi-tech process.

Although the company cannot calculate pre-

cisely what the future will bring, it is well-posi-

tioned to take the lead in advanced battery

recycling. Its century-long experience in pre-

cious metals mining, refining and recycling has

brought Umicore a wealth of expertise. It is

currently the world leader in recycling precious

metals and one of the leading suppliers of raw

materials for hi-tech applications.

Umicore has a full pipeline of expansion

projects, with acquisitions a secondary option

to add technology. In his interview with the

Bloomberg news agency, Mr Grynberg said that

in the next two to three years Umicore will

make a decision on a greenfield recycling plant

that would cost ‘hundreds of millions’ of Euros.

The outlay would be additional to the more

than Euro 100 million the Brussels-headquar-

tered company typically budgets each year for

new projects, he said. As a major pilot plant,

this new facility at Hoboken will be instrumen-

tal in Umicore’s development.

The company plans to expand its plants in

Japan, South Korea and China to meet demand

for battery materials for electric vehicles, and

will boost catalyst operations as car manufac-

turers move to reduce vehicle emissions.

www.umicore.com

waste (gathered during the production chain,

from battery cell to battery pack manufacturing)

and an early end of life during the use phase due

to warranty claims or total loss accidents.

One step behind
While Umicore is confident of its ability to

process the car battery of the future, other ele-

ments in the recycling and collection chain are

not yet so developed. Despite manufacturers’

undoubted environmental mindset, the collec-

tion, dismantling and recycling of these batter-

ies have lagged one step behind their produc-

tion and marketing efforts.

What happens if a consumer buys an electric

car and crashes it the following day?

A representative of Tesla Motors said his firm puts

the entire wreck in a container and ships it to the

USA where company engineers remove the valu-

able ingredients such as the batteries. ‘You need

to be an accredited electrician to put in those bat-

teries, and actually you also need to be an accred-

ited electrician to take it out,’ said Mr Brouwer.

Until now, only Tesla – which is well known for

its fully-electric-powered sports car – has signed

contracts with Umicore to have its batteries

properly recycled, but others will soon follow,

according to the latter. In a recent New York

Times article, Tesla said that it would pay to

recycle its battery packs from models sold in

Europe after seven to 10 years on the road. The

final cost to Tesla would depend partly on the

market value of the metals recovered by Umi-

core. Tesla has also confirmed that it is working

with Toxco in the USA.

Another local representative for a global

brand’s ‘green fleet’ said he did not know what

was happening at the end-of-life stage. So every

manufacturer is going its own way, building its

own collection structures and researching the

best end-of-life options. While their cars are

already hitting the roads, it’s even not yet clear

if reuse or recycling is the most viable option.

Some manufacturers like Nissan are focused on

deferring recycling for as long as possible and

see reuse for other types of power storage (wind

turbines, etc) as an option. It estimates that,

even at the end of their motoring life, the bat-

teries should still be capable of holding about

70% of the power of a new one. Other brands

such as Audi, Volkswagen and BMW are co-

operating with German chemicals giant Che-

metall to develop a proprietary recycling proc-

ess for their lithium-based batteries.

Process for recycling rare
earths from battery slag

Modern battery chemistries are centred mainly
around lithium-ion- and nickel metal hydride
(NiMH)-based power storage. The latter includes
a relatively high level of rare-earth metal.
After separation of nickel and iron from the rare
earths, Umicore will process the latter into a
high-grade concentrate which will be refined and
formulated into rare-earth materials such as
cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and praseo-
dymium at Rhodia’s plant in La Rochelle, France.
NiMH batteries – usually AA and AAA portable
batteries – contain approximately 7% rare earths;
the recycling of one AAA battery will recover 1
gram of rare-earth material as against 60 grams
from a portable tool and 2 kg from a hybrid car.
The process can cover the whole range of NiMH
batteries from portable applications to the bat-
teries used in HEVs. It is expected that recovery
of rare-earth materials could start before the
end of this year. www.rhodia.com

From left: Thomas Leysen, Umicore’s Chairman and Flemish Minister
President Kris Peeters after cutting the ribbon.

Visit the media gallery at
www.recyclinginternational.com
to view more pictures of the opening ceremony.

028 m o 31 12-0 -11 13:18