index
1) Great value in escaping dependence on environmental friendliness and overseas key minerals
2) Electric vehicle popularity ↓… Outlook for the used battery market
3) Current status of Korean used battery industry players and technologies
4) LFP batteries should also be recycled… Monetary value alone should not be considered
5) The path forward for the used battery industry

[Editor's Note] The number of electric vehicles scrapped is expected to exceed 40 million by 2040, and battery recycling technology, which accounts for approximately 30% of the carbon footprint of an electric vehicle's entire life cycle and more than 30% of the price of an electric vehicle, is considered a very important technology in the economic sector. If used batteries are not reused or recycled, waste will continue to increase, and if they are left untreated or buried or incinerated, hazardous substances may be generated, causing environmental pollution. The market size for recycling used batteries is expected to continue to expand as we must respond to the European CRMA and the American IRA, which place great importance on environmental friendliness. We will take a closer look at the used battery industry, which encompasses both economic feasibility and eco-friendliness, and cover the current status of technology and business of Korean companies as well as the industry outlook in articles every Wednesday starting April 24 for five weeks.


The used battery industry is attracting attention as an industry that can kill two birds with one stone: environmental friendliness in that it can reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts required for mining and processing raw materials, and resource security in that it can reduce dependence on resource imports and contribute to securing a sustainable raw material supply chain.

The rapid increase in fossil fuel use since the Industrial Revolution in the 1850s has raised the Earth's temperature by 1.5℃ compared to before the revolution.

Rising temperatures have melted glaciers, led to rising sea levels, and have had negative impacts on a global scale.

To turn the dark future blue again, our society has set out to reduce greenhouse gases through the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change (Paris Agreement) to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5℃ by 2100.

Twenty-four percent of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion come from the transportation sector, with automobiles accounting for 45 percent of that.

Electric vehicles are at the center of methods to reduce carbon emissions from the automobile sector, which can be considered a major culprit in global warming.

Electric vehicles are not completely carbon-free.

According to Hyundai Motor Group's 2022 Sustainability Report, the 'pre-manufacturing' stage accounts for 27.78% of the total greenhouse gas emissions of 169 gCO2-eq/km for the Ioniq 5 model in terms of global warming impact at each stage of the entire life cycle.

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▲Global warming impacts at each stage of the entire process (Image source: 2022 Hyundai Motor Company Sustainability Report)

Most of it is generated during the raw material mining/refining process, and the carbon footprint of metal raw materials such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese is particularly high.

There are growing voices calling for reducing carbon emissions from batteries through the used battery industry to achieve the true eco-friendly value of electric vehicles.

The battery, which is the core of an electric vehicle, is considered to have reached the end of its life when its capacity decreases by 20%, as its resistance increases and its output decreases.

It varies depending on mileage, driving habits, and charging method, but it usually takes about 10 years to use up 20% of the capacity.

Batteries that have reached the end of their lifespan are removed from electric vehicles at scrapping stages and are remanufactured, reused, and recycled based on their residual value and performance. Based on this, the growth of the used electric vehicle battery industry is accelerating.

The government's 'plan to activate the circular economy through regulatory improvement and support' includes: △remanufacturing (restoring the original performance through the process of disassembling the battery, cell balancing, reassembling, and testing) △reuse (using used batteries as parts to generate energy) △Recycling (disassembling batteries to extract and utilize valuable metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel)

In an interview with our paper, George Hye Cho, a senior researcher at the Korea Environmental Research Institute, said that battery reuse and recycling can reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts required for mining and processing raw materials, and can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.He mentioned the importance of .

According to the ICCT research results, even if greenhouse gas emissions increase during battery manufacturing in the future due to the expansion of electric vehicle battery capacity, it is expected that greenhouse gas emission reduction effects can be achieved through secondary use and recycling, and it was found that secondary use and recycling of batteries can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the entire electric vehicle life cycle by 22% and 4%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the used battery industry has great significance not only in terms of environmental friendliness but also in terms of resource security related to the supply chain.

In an interview with our newspaper, Son Jeong-su, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, emphasized that in order for Korea, which is showing strength in the battery industry, to become a true powerhouse, it must reduce its dependence on resource imports, and that recycling of used batteries can play a role in that.

Korea relies on overseas imports for 95% of its mineral needs, and its dependence on China in particular is very high.

As for secondary battery cathode materials, Korea's dependence on imports reached 89% as of 2021.

In order to reduce the high dependence on overseas markets for such key minerals, the government organized a preparatory committee in March of last year with the goal of closely discussing global key mineral business for the sustainability of domestic cutting-edge industries such as secondary batteries and establishing a key mineral business forum where companies can form partnerships such as investment cooperation.

In addition, in January 2024, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held a 'Korea-Indonesia Economic Cooperation High-Level Meeting' to discuss ways to strengthen economic cooperation with the Indonesian government and announced plans to strengthen links in advanced supply chains such as electric vehicles and batteries and continue to expand cooperation.

As our country experienced the dangers of dependence on foreign countries directly while going through the element water crisis, we are trying to maintain close relationships with various mineral-rich countries rather than sticking to just one country.
<bSecuring raw materials through battery recycling, etc. is a representative method that can reduce overseas dependence, along with the efforts of the organizations mentioned above.

Senior Researcher George Hye also said that in relation to resource security, it is possible to replace rare metals with renewable raw materials obtained through material recycling, which can contribute to securing a more sustainable raw material supply chain.

In addition, as the new EU Ecodesign Regulation (ESPR) was adopted at the plenary session of the European Parliament on April 23, 2024, product environmental regulations and policies are being strengthened to ensure that products that consider circular economy factors such as product durability, ease of repair, and reuse/recycling secure global market competitiveness, and it was announced that this can also contribute to creating added value by establishing a battery circular economy system.

The outlook for the used battery market and the current status of Korean companies are discussed in the following article.