By 2030, India's total lithium battery storage requirement will be around 600 GWh and about 125 GWh of lithium batteries will be ready for recycling
A couple of days back, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) transferred the recycling technology of low-cost lithium-ion batteries to nine recycling firms and at Niti Ayog, nine more firms have got letters of intent. In association with Greenko Energies Pvt. Ltd. and the Government of Telangana, MeitY has developed this technology, which is a part of the “Centre of Excellence on E-waste Management" formed at the Centre for Material for Electronics technique (C-MET), Hyderabad.
As per media reports, Besa Li-ion Batteries Pvt Ltd, Mahalaxmi Metalalloys (India) Pvt Ltd, Nexus Renewable Solutions, Remine India Pvt Ltd, Re-Sustainability Ltd, San Automobile Industries Pvt Ltd, SAM-VIK Marketing, SPEGSY Pvt Ltd and Ved Prakash Vinay Kumar are some the startup firms and industries that received the technology. Now, the firms that got letter of intent are CENALL E-waste, Eco Recycling Ltd, Hayat E-Recyclers Pvt Ltd, Elgreen Recycling Pvt Ltd, Project Engineering Service & Consultancy (PESCONS), SBS Paper Recycling Pvt Ltd, Ush India Recycler Pvt Ltd, Wagulde Industries Pvt Ltd and ZP Technologies Pvt Ltd.
This unique technology has the potential to process numerous varieties of scrapped Li-ion batteries, and will extract more than 95 per cent of the lithium (Li), cobalt (Co), manganese (Mn), and nickel (Ni) contents in the form of their respective oxides or carbonates with a purity of around 98 per cent. The process and the technology of the recycling process includes leaching, which is then followed by hierarchical selective extraction of metal values using solvent extraction. The raw materials extracted during the process will be utilized in battery manufacturing or other future use cases.
During the event, Dr R Ratheesh, Director at C-MET Hyderabad highlighted Niti Ayog's report, which stated that by 2030, India's total lithium battery storage requirement will be around 600 GWh and about 125 GWh of lithium batteries will be ready for recycling. The report also added that the black mass or the e-waste that comprises lithium, nickel, copper, and cobalt will be around 3,60,000 tons.
According to a report of News 18, "Currently all the black masses are going to China and Korea for recycling. So I think we have started the recycling initiative at the right time and I request the authorities to put a ban on the export of these materials so that we can support Indian industries to come out with more recycling initiatives," added Dr Ratheesh.
