Along with the global trend of EV, among which comes out one after another start-up companies in the U.S. and Europe for the LiB recycling, but in recent years the importance of again LiB recycling is growing not in the past, The Nippon Recycling Center Corporation  (NRCC) located in Osaka is the only one in Japan, is a recyclers that can recycle the secondary battery other than lead in our own factory, a professional group for 45 years.

At present, the technology is leather, not only in Japan generation products, but has received an offer of recycling from all over the world.

Looking back on history, the Nippon Recycling Center Corp started recycling NiCad batteries and industrial alkaline storage batteries in 1976. I was ahead of the times.

There was a time when the factory was relocated overseas due to the Plaza Accord(in 1985), but from 1998 to the present, it has all recycling processes in Japan. Specifically, the Tsukuda Plant in osaka was in 1998, and as it is still today, it focuses on the recycling of Ni-Cd batteries. Nickel-metal hydride batteries and LiB will be recycled at the Nakajima Plant in Osaka, which was launched after that. It is said that LiB scrap began to appear in the world in the mid-1990s. At that time, cobalt-rich LiB was still in full swing and its recycling value was extremely high, but nowadays there are a wide variety of LiBs, and more efficient recycling methods are needed.

Over 20 years later after that, the usage and usage of secondary batteries have expanded, and as of March 2021, the annual handling volume of secondary battery scrap at the Nippon Recycling Center Corp is 2,000 tons for Ni-Cd and alkaline storage batteries, and nickel-metal hydride batteries. The content is 2,000 tons and LiB is 3,000 tons, and the amount of LiB processed is still the largest. The NRCC is arguably the largest rechargeable battery recycler in Japan, both in name and reality, due to its increased processing capacity and more efficient processing methods.

Regarding nickel-metal hydride batteries, hybrid cars have become the norm when it comes to new cars in Japan, and most of the cars running in the city are hybrid cars, so the amount of secondary battery scrap has increased considerably. Is it there? I asked Mr. Sudo of the NRCC.

"No, the amount of nickel-metal hydride batteries handled has not increased so much. The reason is that hybrid cars themselves are popular overseas (especially in Mongolia) as high-quality used cars, and the amount that is dismantled as scrapped cars in Japan is not so much. It has not increased. "

This is because the same impression was obtained in the automobile dismantling industry, so hybrid cars are certainly running around, but at the end it will be greeted overseas instead of Japan. I don't know if it's properly recycled”.

At the Nippon Recycling Center Corp, this nickel-metal hydride battery is heat-treated in a pot-type vacuum heating furnace at the Nakajima Plant, the electrolyte and resin components are gasified, and the metal parts are sold as ferronickel to stainless steel manufacturers. Many nickel-metal hydride batteries are valuable and purchased.

Next, regarding nickel-cadmium battery recycling (which also serves as part of the processing process for alkaline storage batteries), the processing equipment at the Tsukuda Plant was expanded at the end of 2020, and the processing capacity has doubled since 2021. Naturally, the latest environmental protection equipment is installed, and there is no lack of environmental protection.

I also confirmed the site by myself, but a state of the art factory has been newly built, and the heating furnace is actually a shiny new one.

There is no other factory in the world that can process more than 2,000 tons of Ni-Cd and alkaline batteries, let alone in Japan. It is no exaggeration to say that it is the world's number one nickel-cadmium battery recycling factory.

Most Ni-Cd and alkaline storage batteries are now taken over in the form of a reverse charge for processing costs. The required processing cost is about 200 yen per kilogram, which is conscientious.

Recycling LRC’s NiCd batteries is extremely simple. Ni-Cd batteries contain 15 to 20% cadmium, which is separated and extracted by heat to produce 99.95% grade cadmium ingots. Each ingot is made into 3 kg by a casting machine and is mainly exported to India. In this vacuum heating furnace, 1 ton of Ni-Cd and alkaline batteries are processed at one time.

In addition, nickel-cadmium batteries are often made of iron on the exterior, but industrial alkaline batteries are often made of resin. This resin case is crushed at the Nakajima Plant and then separated into a battery body and resin, and the exterior resin is sold to a recycling company as recycled resin. The alkaline solution of the alkaline battery is drained after being neutralized.

On the other hand, the Nakajima Plant mainly processes LiB, nickel-metal hydride, and alkaline storage batteries, but in recent years, the amount of LiB recycled has increased sharply, so capital investment is increasing. As I explained before, LiB scrap is handled at 3,000 tons per year, but the Nakajima Plant is currently operating at a high operating rate.

LiB is a lot of process waste from battery makers, so-called production scrap, and there are still few in-vehicle LiBs that are expected to generate a large amount in the future.

Let's take a look at the LiB recycling flow here. On the day that I visited there, battery of the electrically power assisted bicycle was processed, but since the specifications of the positive electrode material are slightly different for each company even with the electric power assist, the NRC will use the same type (positive electrode material, etc.) as much as possible. It is said that it is being processed. Currently, LiB is mainly ternary (NCA, NCM, etc.), and there are many reverse paid patterns with processing costs.

On the contrary, most of the used consumer LiB, like nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium, comes from the small secondary battery recovery scheme of JBRC.

This LiB recycling processing line has been installed since 2011 and is highly automated. The first used LiB is sorted by hand, but then the sorted LiB is transported to the rotary kiln processing process, where it is charged into the rotary kiln and heat-treated by a simple operation by the operator. 

At this time, the resin and the electrolytic solution are effectively used as "fuel". Since the electrolyte contains fluorine, it is important to treat the exhaust gas, but Mr. Sudo said that they made a considerable investment in the treatment of the exhaust gas after the kiln combustion. This LiB treatment plant is also clearly larger in the gas treatment process.

LiB heat-treated with a kiln undergoes a separation and concentration process to become so-called black sand, which is sold domestically and internationally.

The processing process of The Nippon Recycling Center Corp is all dry methods so far, but in fact, research and development is progressing so that wet processing can be started at any time, and basic technology research to perform wet processing has been completed, but it is profitable. When considering it, the NRCC have not introduced this because we thought that they should have all the processes up to single element recovery in-house at a high cost.

High-cost single-element recovery is meaningless unless it has high added value such as "battery-to-battery". In that sense, it is realistic for multiple companies to utilize their expertise and cooperate with each other in each status of the recycling flow to realize high added value at a lower cost, which is in Japan. Isn't it accelerating the fulfillment of the closed loop of "battery to battery" in Japan?

I just expect that NRC, the Nippon Recycling Center Corp, will play a part in that.

(IRuniverse　YujiTanamachi）