August 23, 2023: China-based Narada Power says it is committed to ramping up its recycling of lead batteries as part of its corporate social responsibility commitments.
Details of the lead and lithium battery giant’s recycling and environmental management activities are included in Narada’s CSR report for 2022, published earlier this month.
Narada says its Huabo Technology subsidiary handles and uses about 1.2 million tonnes of waste lead batteries and lead-containing waste each year.
That allows the production of 590,000 tonnes of secondary lead annually, which can save 5.9 million tonnes of primary lead ore each year.
Narada says it has also been an active participant in a pilot national centralized battery collection and transfer program for lead battery producers.
The company says it has set up 22 transportation hubs serving more than 370 battery collection outlets in seven cities and provinces including Zhejiang, Anhui and Hubei provinces, “forming a fully-closed industry chain”.
The company has achieved a national ‘standardized recycling rate’ of waste lead batteries in excess of more than 60% from 2019 to 2021 and plans to go further.
Under China’s 14th five-year plan for industrial green development, Narada says secondary refined lead production is to reach nearly three million tonnes annually by 2025 with a total market capacity worth around Rmb40 billion ($5.5 billion).
Meanwhile, the company is stepping up its use of renewables to ease emissions as a result of its production processes.
In 2022, Narada says two of its subsidiaries in China achieved the ISO50001 certification — a globally recognized standard for organizations looking to improve energy management — and as of the end of last year, five individual factories had also been ISO50001 certified.
The five plants use solar-BESS systems to provide power for production and offices and wastewater is treated for reuse as well as using waste heat.
In terms of lithium battery recycling, Narada says it has an annual lithium battery recycling capacity of 70,000 tonnes and plans to invest in creating a further 150,000 tonnes.
“Through years of technology accumulation and development, our company has completed the efficient separation and purification technology of metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and lithium, and can use waste batteries to produce high-purity lithium ion battery raw materials,” Narada says.
According to government figures reported by Narada, the theoretical recovery volume of China’s waste lithium ion batteries by 2026 will reach more than 2.3 million tonnes, and the theoretical market size of waste Li battery recycling will be around Rmb94 billion.
Photo: Narada