Honda executives said that the company plans to use waste lithium-ion batteries as raw materials, and began to produce nickel-cobalt alloys in 2025 for hydrogen storage tank production.
At the Japan International Smart Energy Week Resource Recycling Expo, Tomokazu Abe, General Manager of the Honda Cycle Resource Promotion Department, said: “From 2025 onwards, there will be a large amount of used lithium-ion batteries available for recycling, and our processing plants will be ready. ”
Honda’s plan is to produce nickel-cobalt alloys from cathodes of used batteries and use them in the hydrogen storage market. Abe revealed: “Based on the market price in 2017, a Fit model can currently recover nickel and cobalt worth about 4,000 yen (36 US dollars). The recovery rates of nickel, cobalt and manganese are 99.7%, 91. 3%, 94.8%.”
Abe said that the current metal recycling cost of used batteries is still at a high level due to limited battery supply and lack of efficiency due to the lack of established technology, which is about 100 yen/kg. However, automation costs such as controlling transportation costs and using robots for disassembly can effectively reduce recycling costs.
Honda’s idea of ​​using recycled secondary alloys as metal hydrides or MH alloys for hydrogen storage tanks is not groundless. According to the top executives of Japan Steel Corporation (JSW), the demand for MH alloys in Japan will increase exponentially in the next few years.
JSW is Japan’s largest steel manufacturer with over 30 years of experience in the development and production of alloys and hydrogen storage tanks. In 2017, JSW and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Co., Ltd. jointly developed a new type of hydrogen storage tank, which cost about 30% less than traditional hydrogen storage tanks; in February 2019, JSW, high pressure Showa cylinder and Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metal jointly developed The hydrogen
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