Solving spent lithium-ion battery problems in China: Opportunities and challenges

Xianlai Zeng, Jinhui Li and Lili Liu

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015, vol. 52, issue C, 1759-1767

Abstract: Consumer electronics (CE) and electric vehicles (EVs) associated with renewable and sustainable energy have been rapidly changing human lifestyles and transportation habits since 1990s. These active innovations have resulted in a large amount of spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) in China. At least two problems are declining the sustainability of production and final disposal of LiBs: one is potential environmental and health risk, and the other is that more and more valuable resources are being stored in spent LiBs without appropriate recycling. We found that a lack of effective regulation, collection systems and recycling technologies are major barriers and challenges to solve the problems. And in order to develop a comprehensive management scheme for this waste stream in China, we proposed a three-pronged approach: (1) new regulation or policy is quite a necessity to deal with the challenges unique to spent LiBs recycling; (2) collection systems for CE and EV batteries can be substantially established based upon past experience of general e-waste management and extended producer responsibility, respectively; and (3) more emphasis needs to be placed on new technology for spent LiBs recycling, to tackle the large quantities of stored spent LiBs.

Keywords: Lithium-ion battery (LiB); Electric vehicle (EV); Problems; Recycling; China; Prospect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.08.014

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