Current status of recycling lead-acid battery recycling industry in developed countries

Used lead-acid batteries, because of its high recycling value and become the focus of circular economy. However, if the used lead-acid battery is handled and disposed of improperly, it will easily cause serious environmental pollution and threaten human health. Therefore, used lead-acid batteries are recognized internationally as hazardous waste.

In recent years, countries around the world have paid more and more attention to the recycling and recycling of lead. Western developed countries have even encouraged the recycling and treatment of used lead-acid batteries in economic and legislative fields, and have made great progress. In China, although the recycling of used lead-acid batteries started earlier (in the 1950s), in the past few decades, due to various reasons, its recycling technology has developed slowly. In recent years, with people ring

With the improvement of the sense of security, the state has also introduced many relevant policies and regulations, and increased investment in this area, but the effect is minimal. At present, although the technical level of a few formal enterprises has reached the international advanced level, the overall technical level of the country is still relatively backward. The construction of the recycling system for used lead-acid batteries and the formulation of relevant policies and regulations need to be further improved, and the gap with the developed countries in the world. There is still room for further reduction.

    I. Recycling mode of waste lead-acid batteries abroad

The developed countries in the world attach great importance to the recycling and recycling of used lead-acid batteries. In Western and medium-developed countries, there are three main ways to recycle used lead-acid batteries:

The first route is for battery manufacturers to organize recycling through their retail network;

The second route is operated by alliances and recycling companies that collect waste lead-acid batteries and lead-containing wastes approved by government regulations. These wasters collect lead from lead-acid batteries and lead lead from various possible sources. After the waste, it will be resold to a regenerative lead plant with a scale and a business license;

Third way is to establish a particular method of waste lead-acid battery recycling in the secondary lead plant cleaning operation of the company, to take are: trade, mortgage gold, special signs regulations, environmental taxes and so on. They cleaned the recovered lead-acid batteries and returned them directly to the regenerative lead plant.

Practice has proved that these kinds of recycling methods are effective as long as there are appropriate laws and regulations. In most developed countries, satisfactory results have been achieved. The recovery rate of used lead-acid batteries in developed countries has basically reached 100%.

In France, before the end of the 1980s, recycling was almost entirely done by scrap buyers. However, this collection method has many shortcomings, and there are problems of random acid and acid leakage, and there are hidden dangers in environmental protection and safety. As a result, an organized and more environmentally responsible recycling system has been developed. This type of recycling requires certain procedures: handing a sealed plastic bucket to the customer to store the battery; transporting the plastic bucket to a stacking platform called a “dedicated site” using a truck equipped with a movable tailgate. A leak-proof device is installed on the platform to prevent acid from flowing out; the used battery is sealed to the battery maker with a sealed, acid-resistant drum. Currently, there are three types of people or organizations that can implement this organized recycling system: battery wholesalers, multiple waste purchasers, and manufacturers. These people can be divided into two categories: one is the purchaser of waste products, they can recycle two-thirds of used batteries to supply to battery purchasers and wholesalers; the other is organized recycling people, including professional recycling They, a variety of waste recyclers and some manufacturers, they can only recycle one-third of used batteries.

In Australia, the battery manufacturer is responsible for recalling and collecting waste batteries, packing them in bundles, sending them to the recycling lead manufacturer with special transportation tools, and paying certain hazardous waste disposal fees; the recycling lead factory collects disposal fees and processing fees. Return the recycled lead to the battery factory.

    2. Foreign encouragement (restriction) policies for the recycled lead industry

Developed countries have formulated relatively complete laws and regulations for the recycling lead industry. In particular, they have strict regulations on environmental protection issues. The operation of the industry has been incorporated into the legal system and promoted the development of the industry. As early as March 1991, the European Union issued a directive document on hazardous materials battery No. 91/157 for waste batteries, which stipulated the marking of batteries containing more than 0.4% lead and the method of disassembling the batteries from the equipment, which stipulated the public. It is obligatory to return the waste battery in the car or electric vehicle to the retailer or the recycling station without charge, in exchange for the deposit paid when the battery was purchased at that time. If it is not returned, the deposit will be deducted; the regenerative lead factory must also A portion of the proceeds from the production of such waste batteries is used for the investment and development of environmentally friendly equipment.

In terms of the setting of the regenerative lead plant, the construction of the foreign regenerative lead plant must first obtain the permission of the national environmental protection department to issue a hazardous waste disposal business license. Since lead is highly toxic, from the perspective of environmental protection, technology and economy, the production of recycled lead abroad can only be concentrated in the hands of a few large enterprises. Generally, only one or two enterprises with a production scale of 20,000 tons/year or more are established in one area. In order to control the situation of high-level and local protection caused by profit-driven, the following table shows the quantity and scale of recycled lead production enterprises in developed countries. In developed countries abroad, the government does not allow the existence of malicious competition in industries involving environmental protection, which is conducive to the development of environmentally-friendly and industrialized recycling of lead resources.

Comparison of the number and scale of recycled lead production enterprises in developed countries

Developed countries have strict laws and regulations on the recycling and disposal of waste batteries. Take Japan as an example: the public can't mix waste batteries into general solid municipal waste, and can't discard them at will, and can't disassemble the acid, but should be sent to the designated waste battery recycling station. The recycling station is set up by the battery manufacturer. The manufacturer is responsible for recalling the waste battery, and then collecting it from the recycling station, wrapping it in bundles with plastic cloth, and transporting it to the recycling lead plant for disposal. After recycling the waste battery, the regenerative lead battery is smelted into recycled lead and sold to the battery manufacturer. When the battery manufacturer sells the battery, the disposal fee should be distributed to the price of each battery in a certain proportion, which is borne by the public. Its cycle mode is as follows:

In the above closed circuit cycle, if any discarding, disassembling the battery, or dumping the waste acid liquid is found, it is fined; in addition, the nearby soil is sampled and tested regularly, and once the environment is found to be polluted, heavy punishment is imposed and permanent liability is assumed.

    III. Overview of foreign recycled lead recycling technology

In developed countries, the whole waste battery mechanical crushing and sorting method is mainly used, and the whole battery is divided into waste acid liquid, grid, lead paste, waste plastic and waste partition. The waste acid is reused after being treated in the wastewater treatment tank; the grid can be directly alloyed or crude lead by low-temperature melting; the sulfur-containing lead paste is desulfurized by desulfurization pretreatment technology, and then fire, wet or dry respectively. The wet combined process reduces lead by reduction; the plastic is sold as a by-product after cleaning. On the one hand, this mechanical operation effectively avoids lead poisoning in the production process and reduces the labor intensity of the workers; on the other hand, the grid material and the paste are separated, the amount of material entering the furnace is reduced, and the lead of the charge is increased. The grade, which reduces the amount of smoke, the amount of slag, the amount of smoke, the energy consumption, the emission of sulfur dioxide, and improves the recovery rate, work efficiency and productivity of the metal, which is very beneficial to environmental protection. Most of the lead smelting reduction smelting uses fuel rotary kiln, using automatic clean energy measurement, automatic feeding, using bag dust to automatically control the smoke and soot emissions inside and outside the workshop, to meet the specified environmental requirements, so that the lead recovery rate of metal More than 95%. In the final treatment of waste residue, foreign countries have adopted centralized deep landfill, which further controls the damage of residual lead residue to the soil. Figure 1 is a flow chart of the foreign classic fire regeneration lead smelting process, and Figure 2 is the battery crushing and sorting device.

Figure 1 Flow chart of recycling and recycling of used lead-acid batteries

Figure 2 US MA.31 battery crushing and sorting system

    Fourth, the world's production and distribution of recycled lead

Since the 1960s, the world's primary lead production has gradually declined, and the production of recycled lead has gradually increased. Compared with other metals, lead recycling and recycling are much easier. Therefore, lead is the highest recycling rate among all metals. In the 1980s and 1990s, the world's production of recycled lead exceeded the original lead production.

The recycled lead industry plays an important role in the world's lead industry. In 2003, the world's recycled lead accounted for half of the total lead production. The United States is the world's largest producer of recycled lead. In 2003, recycled lead production reached 803,900 tons, accounting for more than 58% of total refined lead production (138.200 tons); Germany was 62%, France was 98%, Italy was 93%, Japan. 64%. In 2006, the world's recycled lead production reached 3.11 million tons (data from the China Nonferrous Metals Recycling Branch).

The world's renewable lead production capacity is mainly concentrated in North America, Europe and Asia, and North America's recycled lead production accounts for 47.3% of the world's total recycled lead production. Recycled lead production enterprises are mainly distributed in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Spain, China, etc. According to the proportion of lead production in each country in total lead consumption, they can be divided into three types:

(1) Countries that do not produce primary lead produce only a small amount of recycled lead. Such countries include Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, Nigeria, New Zealand, etc.;

(2) The countries with more than 50% of the recycled lead production include the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Belgium, France, etc.;

(3) Countries with less than 50% of recycled lead production are mainly developing countries, such as China.