Full lifecycle management of EV batteries is becoming a core issue for the NEV industry. When an EV battery’s capacity falls below 80% of initial capacity, it’s considered no longer suitable for automotive propulsion — but battery materials still contain significant recoverable precious metals. Direct disposal represents serious resource waste.
## Two-Phase Utilization Path
**Second-life use**: retired EV batteries (SOH 60-80%) still carry considerable energy storage value, applicable in scenarios with lower charge/discharge performance requirements: base station backup power, home energy storage systems (ESS), low-speed electric vehicles (electric tricycles, e-bikes), and industrial storage. BYD, CATL, and Guoxuan High-tech have all established second-life subsidiaries. Economics: equivalent energy storage capacity from second-life batteries costs approximately 40-60% of new batteries — meaningful for reducing storage system costs.
**Material recovery (hydrometallurgy / pyrometallurgy)**: when battery SOH falls too low for second-life use (<60%), batteries enter disassembly → physical shredding → wet/fire metallurgy → material purification, recovering lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and other valuable metals. Hydrometallurgy (HCl/H₂SO₄ leaching) achieves higher recovery rates (lithium ≥85%, nickel/cobalt ≥98%) but involves complex processes and high wastewater treatment costs; pyrometallurgy (high-temperature smelting) is simpler but has low lithium recovery (~60%) and high energy consumption. ## Industry Structure and Policy China's EV battery recycling market features "strong formal players alongside scattered informal operators": CATL (Brunp Recycling), GEM, Huayou Cobalt, and Tianqi Co. are leading formal enterprises building complete closed loops from collection → processing → precursor → cathode materials. But large quantities of batteries flow to informal "backyard" channels, posing significant regulatory challenges. Policy: MIIT's 2023 revision of the "Interim Measures for the Administration of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries" mandates producer responsibility (EPR), requiring automakers to establish collection networks and take responsibility for full battery lifecycles. See [Solid-State Battery Technology](https://sunqi.org/solid-state-battery-en/) and [GEM official website](https://www.gem.com.cn/).
