Rising to the Battery Challenge

As the number of electric cars and electric motorcycles on the island's roads grows, Taiwan will have to deal with an increasing amount of battery waste. Photo: Steven Crook

The solution to our growing energy needs might be buried under a mountain of batteries.

After a long struggle to tackle e-waste, Taiwan, particularly through the Ministry of Environment, has managed to get both manufacturers and the general public to follow proper recycling practices, understand the harm caused by improper disposal of electronic devices, and comply with product take-back and recycling regulations.

According to the Executive Yuan, last year’s recycling rate for discarded electronics and household appliances was around 85.9% – possibly the highest in the world. The International Telecommunication Union reported that Europe, the leading region in e-waste recycling, had an average documented recycling rate of 42.8%, while the global average only reached 22.3%. A combination of public awareness, corporate responsibility, and government regulations in Taiwan is paving the way for even greater progress.

The system in place does a good job when it comes to recycling devices, such as laptops and smartphones. However, like most of the industrialized world, Taiwan is bracing for a vast increase in the number of batteries requiring disposal as electric vehicles (EVs) replace those that burn gasoline or diesel. The annual volume of waste batteries in Taiwan is expected to grow from around 792 metric tons in 2023 to 2,020 metric tons in 2025, and as much as 48,077 metric tons in 2035.

Lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide recovered from waste batteries by UWin Resource Regeneration. Photo: Steven Crook.

Most EVs are powered by lithium-ion cells due to their high energy density and efficiency. Around 85% of global lithium production goes into batteries, as does 70% of the world’s cobalt, which provides stability to the battery, and more than 10% of its nickel. There’s enough extractable lithium for every household on the planet to own an EV, yet there are concerns about mining and refining capacity.

Some analysts have warned of a production bottleneck as early as next year. The bottleneck is not the availability of lithium itself, but the infrastructure needed to extract and refine it at a pace that can keep up with rising global demand. Even if they are wrong, two compelling arguments support retrieving and reusing lithium from end-of-life batteries.

The first is strategic: China dominates the global lithium refining industry. By supplementing mined lithium, recycling can provide security of supply to places that lack this mineral and reduce dependency on other regions.

In an interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News, Ming Ren Resources Technology Co. Vice Chairman Chen Yi-jie said that relying on other countries is inherently risky, given the number of governments that have already outlawed importing certain types of waste. She called on Taiwan to help companies build local processing capacity by increasing subsidies. Under the current system, she said, recyclers can make greater profits by selling waste batteries abroad, while enterprises in Taiwan that have the capacity to process old cells suffer due to low equipment utilization rates. Most of the battery waste collected in Taiwan is shipped to Japan or South Korea, where the cells are disassembled and shredded.

Domestic regulations have categorized all end-of-life lithium batteries, regardless of size, as waste that should be recycled. Until very recently, however, the handful of local companies licensed by the Ministry of Environment to accept batteries for disposal focused on scrap and defective cells collected from manufacturers. This waste is easier to handle than post-consumer batteries, as electricity remaining in the latter must be discharged before processing to reduce fire risk. Among these firms, only a few claim to be able to turn dead batteries into a fine powder known in the industry as “black mass.”

The second argument is environmental. Extracting lithium from hard rock mines or underground brine reservoirs is energy-intensive, generating carbon emissions of up to 15 metric tons per metric ton of lithium, often causing air, water, and soil pollution, especially in areas with less stringent regulations.

Helsinki-headquartered sustainable technology company Metso says that recycling batteries can reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 30% while cutting energy consumption, water pollution, and air pollution by at least 20%. Taiwanese recycler UWin Nanotech Co. gives a more impressive number. The company says that the carbon footprint of lithium retrieved through its UWin Resource Regeneration process is 90% smaller than that of mined lithium. The process requires neither high pressures nor high temperatures (at no stage is material heated above 100 degrees Celsius), so it is not energy intensive.

At UWin’s plant, a handful of workers oversee equipment capable of recycling all of Taiwan’s EV battery waste. Photo: Courtesy of UWin

Endorsing a suggestion in AmCham Taiwan’s 2023 White Paper that the government should “foster a sustainable battery recycling industry,” UWin General Manager Leo Chang explains that Taiwan’s battery recycling system has thus far only handled the initial stages of the process.  

After separating out plastics, aluminum, and steel, the black mass contains valuable quantities of cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, and manganese. The majority of recycling enterprises use traditional high-temperature pyrometallurgy to extract cobalt, copper, and nickel, but this technique is far from ideal. As well as being energy-intensive and polluting, it leaves the lithium and manganese behind in the slag.

Recycling companies like UWin and Nevada-based Redwood Materials (founded by Tesla’s former chief technical officer) are betting on hydrometallurgy, which uses acids or solvents to dissolve batteries and separate elements. Even so, pyrometallurgy still has its supporters; rather than smelt at very high temperatures, salt-assisted roasting and microwaving may be able to recover metals with few downsides, according to a 2024 paper published in Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry.

Importance of purity

When it comes to the global picture, Chang recognizes the key role being played by the EU. The 27-country grouping has set minimums for both the recycling of old batteries and the use of recovered metals in new cells.

By weight, at least 50% of every battery must be recycled. For lithium-ion batteries, this requirement will increase to 65% in 2026 and to 70% in 2031, in line with the proposed targets in the updated EU Battery Regulation. The EU has also established recycling obligations for specific metals. For instance, the required lithium-recovery rate from waste cells will rise from 50% at the end of 2027 to 80% by the end of 2031. For cobalt, copper, nickel, and lead, the rate will be 90% after 2026.

Revisions that came into force in February 2024 stipulate that from 2031, at least 6% of lithium in new batteries made or imported into the EU – along with 16% of cobalt, 85% of lead, and 6% of nickel – must be recovered material. In 2036, these minimums will remain the same or increase to 12%, 26%, 85%, and 15%, respectively. The regulations aim to promote the circular economy and reduce reliance on virgin materials for battery production.

UWin can prove that the lithium it recovers from battery waste via its hydrometallurgy process is purer than that of freshly mined lithium supplied by companies such as Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Even so, Chang concedes, convincing potential clients that recycled materials are suitable for their supply chains is still a challenge, as the quality of lithium inputs is critical to cell performance and safety.  

Because many battery failures and fires have been attributed to the presence of sodium and other impurities, manufacturers demand lithium that is at least 99.5% pure. If the level of purity is even higher, the cell will last longer, and safety issues will be less likely to appear, Chang explains.

Regulations and solutions

In an email response, Ford Taiwan, which began selling EVs locally last October, explains that it has partnered with a Taichung-based enterprise to dispose of battery waste overseas since “Taiwan currently lacks a comprehensive EV battery recycling industry chain.” Stressing its adherence to local regulations, the carmaker works with licensed enterprises, “ensuring transparent processing flows and rigorous handling methods.”

The Ministry of the Environment’s 4-in-1 Recycling Program requires battery makers and importers to register as responsible operators, declare sales and import volumes, and pay recycling/removal fees. The current fee for rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs is NT$39 per kilogram. (The fee for non-rechargeable lithium batteries, which tend to be much smaller and thus more troublesome to recycle, is five times higher.)

Saying such charges are crucial to the viability of the recycling industry, UWin’s Chang argues that “the current fees present a challenge for recyclers trying to make a reasonable profit, particularly with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Despite subsidies, it’s difficult for recyclers to profit from LFP batteries due to the low value of LFP black mass and safety issues, so they’re less inclined to focus on LFP.”

However, black mass still plays a crucial role in the battery recycling ecosystem. Some types of batteries, like LFPs, may yield less profitable black mass. Still, securing a consistent supply of this material is essential to the viability of the entire recycling industry.

UWin sources black mass from China and is already working with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., a Chinese company that in recent years has supplied around a third of the world’s EV batteries. To increase domestic supplies of black mass, UWin is investing in a new plant in Taichung that will employ UWin’s own discharge solution. According to Chang, this methodology is rapid, does not corrode the batteries’ electrodes, and does not result in difficult-to-treat wastewater.

After the government signs off on soil test results showing the site is not contaminated, another facility in Taoyuan’s Luzhu District is expected to process 1,000 metric tons of black mass each year. This should be enough to meet Taiwan’s lithium-ion battery recycling needs for at least the next five years, says Chang.

Armin Ibitz, an associate professor at Wenzao Ursuline University in Kaohsiung, sees potential in non-lithium alternatives, such as the high-performance, long-life vanadium redox batteries produced by Austria-based CellCube. The company uses vanadium electrolyte, which is sourced from U.S. steelmaking waste streams and is close to 100% reusable. It claims the CO₂ emissions of its products are 78% lower than those of lithium-ion equivalents.

Vanadium redox batteries are suitable for medium- and large-scale commercial and utility applications. Nobody expects they will soon be deployed in EVs, however, so the surge in lithium battery waste is looking like a tide that cannot be turned back.

“From a circular economy perspective, repurposing end-of-life EV batteries as energy storage is a promising idea,” says Ibitz. But it has yet to catch on in Taiwan. Residential energy storage is unknown, and every battery so far deployed by NHOA TCC – a collaboration between NHOA Group, an expert in energy storage, and Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) – at its local electricity-storage facilities are brand new.

If an EV loses a fifth of its range, its owner is likely to replace the battery or the entire vehicle. Such batteries are still useful as stationary power-storage units.

Pointing out that the growth of the EV market is coinciding with a massive increase in demand for energy storage solutions that compensate for the intermittent nature of renewables, Ibitz says that finding enough raw materials for batteries is challenging. To address this issue, more effort should be placed on researching more efficient chemical batteries and reducing required inputs, as well as enhancing recycling and recovery rates.