On 24th march 2022 the ministry of heavy industries announced incentives worth 1800

crore rupees this is to promote local battery cell production four firms including ola
hyundai reliance new energy and rajesh exports were awarded under the protection linked
incentive or pli scheme for advanced chemistry cell battery storage this has been planned
to help india's burgeoning eva ecosystem

First the battery packs are placed on an assembly line where they are opened and broken
down into their constituent modules. It is on a conveyer belt that the modules meet at their
end dropping into a shredder. The crushing process takes place in a vacuum or in a
nitrogen atmosphere to prevent anything from igniting. At the end of the process all that is
left of the aluminium lithium cobalt and copper is a dusty pile of granulated material.

The next stage of recycling takes place in this sorting system the granulated material
passes through a screen an array of magnets and a cyclone filter materials such as
aluminium copper and the plastic from the separator film are extracted on the way.

Hydro metallurgical process begins put simply that means an acid bath here the valuable
materials are eluded and separated from the gray powder these include graphite as well as
manganese nickel and cobalt. It is important to reclaim the lithium and sufficient purity to
allow it to be used directly in new cells overall 96% of the module materials is recycled

So to prep you for what's happening here, we have the EV battery pack going up the
conveyor belt to this funnel right here. The entire funnel, you know, the whole tower, is
full of a proprietary liquid with a massive submerged industrial shredder at the bottom.
There are a lot of materials inside the modules. We have the metal casing, we have the
plastic interiors that hold all the modules steady, and of course, we have the lithium
cobalt and nickel inside of the batteries themselves. There's a lot to collect. One of the
benefits of having a whole battery pack go into the shredder is that no one is
required to disassemble the pack. After the batteries are ground up they go from a
charge state into a completely inert state. There is no electricity in the materials after
the blender. can see it flowing through here down to a stream where the plastic is
vibrated up to this shoot here where they are dropped down into a recycling bag for
further processing.
After the electric vehicle battery is dropped into the shredder, it gets ground up into small
metal flakes which sink to the bottom of the tank and get conveyered up and out of the
liquid like you're seeing here. Coming out of the vibrator we have aluminum, steel, and
copper, and sometimes even some sweet metals that come off the circuit boards, like
gold, platinum, and palladium, all collected in bags to be recycled later. With how
valuable and useful these internal materials are, no one should be throwing them in a
landfill. The way the cobalt and lithium are extracted from that proprietary liquid inside
the shredder machine is with something called a filter press. The metal-rich liquid is
pumped into the large blue press, and that proprietary liquid is hydraulically squeezed
out leaving behind something called black mass on each of the individual filters. The
black mass is what's falling down the chute as each of the filters are shaken, and is
what contains all of our coveted elements. The black mass has been valuable enough
to be called “the new gold.” It really is the most valuable part of this entire process.
It's a vital ingredient in making new batteries. One of the coolest parts about this system
is while they are using a ton of water inside, it is a closed loop system and none of
that water ever leaves. It's not used up in any of the reactions. There's also no air
pollutants in a traditional sense since nothing's being burned. After the batteries have
been shredded, sorted, filtered, and pressed, we're left with these three commodities
here. We have the middle bag which is full of plastics that came from floating off the
top of the liquid. Then we have the aluminum and copper shred which sank down to the
bottom. And lastly we have our coveted black mass. And this is where we find the cobalt,
the lithium, and the nickel. It feels a lot like black mud. The elemental metals can be
infinitely recycled and 95% of the batteries that go through this system are collected in
one of these three bags.

The electric vehicle industry in India has reached an inflection point. $18.1 billion industry

70% of CO2 emissions avoided by going for Li-ion recycling instead of mining & refining
metals.

As a growing number of Indian consumers embrace EVs, by the end of the decade, we're
likely to see an influx of first-generation, end-of-life, EV batteries. A study by the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) suggests that India could have nearly 1,45,000
tonnes of used batteries by 2030.

Currently, lithium-ion batteries dominate the EV battery market. These batteries have a
finite lifespan, typically ranging from 8-10 years, depending on factors such as usage,
charging habits, and environmental conditions. When these batteries reach the end of their
life, they can no longer provide sufficient power for driving but they can be repurposed to
serve less demanding applications such as stationary energy-storage services (second-life
use) or recycled for extracting critical battery raw materials such as lithium, cobalt,
nickel, and manganese which could in turn be utilized to manufacture new EV batteries.

 Fix the components

 Replacing the components
 Upgrading the components

Circular economy essentially means metals are extracted by recycling instead of digging
up the earth and putting them back into the ev supply chain. The metals that come out of
recycled streams and recycled output are same as the ones that come out of a mine, there
is no change in chemical property there is no change in thermal property there is no
change in physical property there is no change at all. So the beauty of metals is you can
recycle them infinite amount of times as long as the right technology to do so and they do
not lose any of the quality

Currently, the bulk of battery waste is handled by the unorganized sector. To manage
waste safely and efficiently, the development of a robust organized sector in the recycling
industry is critical. The government can play an important role in developing the required
systems and standards. To achieve economies of scale, the downstream process should be
centralized. The upstream process can be centralized depending on the industrial activity,
that is, whether it is recycling, reusing, or doing both. Instead of thinking of recycling as a
cost-centric activity, it should be considered a revenue generator and industry creator. A
push to transition from the unorganized sector to the organized sector would be a
significant step forward, and traceability of materials would further accelerate its success.
A mechanism should be developed to pull unorganized players into the organized sector,
and incentives can play a key role in this effort. Customer awareness about the incentives
they gain when exchanging batteries for EoL recycling would also contribute to the
success of the formal sector. The battery recycling industry can be transformed into a
potential revenue generator with support from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
(MNRE) and Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI). Because the battery reuse and recycling
industry is at a nascent stage, support mechanisms from the government that would
operate in parallel to the existing schemes can be explored.

For EoL management of EV batteries in India, the government has notified Battery Waste
Mangement Rules at the national level. BWMR 2022 has a provision for EPR usage to track
and trace retired EV batteries. Another major step is the Draft Battery Swapping Policy,
which has a provision for Unique Identification Numbers (UIN) to facilitate life cycle
management of EV batteries, including technical data requirements at different stages of
their life.