Bang Pu Cycle: Lithium Battery Recovery Gold Mining, New Energy Tuyere Closed Loop

Editor's note

Since November 17, the 21st century economic report has launched a series of special topics, "on high growth enterprises: discovering the sample of gazelle" in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay area, and plans to launch ten consecutive issues. This series of reports is jointly planned by the Hong Kong and Macao broadcasting center of Guangdong and Macao.

This series of reports focuses on the high growth enterprises in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Through in-depth first-line interviews and field research, we try to present the group stories of "Gazelle" enterprises active in the strategic emerging industries in Dawan District, excavate the explorations, discoveries and efforts of Dawan entrepreneurs in their respective industries, as well as their struggle, choice and thinking.

Today, issue 8, we will focus on the new energy power battery recycling industry. This year, the share price and market value of new energy vehicles and power battery manufacturers as core components have reached new highs. There are several young people who saw the huge market space for battery recycling many years ago. Production, consumption, recycling, and then put into production, forming a commercial closed-loop. How did they seize the opportunity? Gazelle report team will reveal the secret for you.

Since the beginning of this year, Weilai, idealist and Xiaopeng have been listed one after another. Tesla is eager to embrace the Chinese market - the new energy vehicle outlet has come.

Behind this, the power battery, as a key component, supports nearly 40% of the cost of new energy vehicles and becomes the backbone of industrial development.

As a result, the long neglected power battery recycling industry in history and the companies behind it are catching up with a new round of industrial era after more than ten years of dormancy.

Back in 2006, 14 young people finally chose to give up the trade business of battery waste, which could bring high profits at that time, and turned to research and development, and began to prepare for the process of self participation in the recycling of waste battery resources.

Because they see that the small electronic waste scattered around our lives is actually another kind of recyclable and vital "rich ore". The content of valuable metals separated from "e-waste" will even be dozens of times higher than that obtained from general metal mineral resources.

Especially in the context of the increasing shortage of rare metals in the upstream and the high import cost, the separation, recycling and reuse of metal resources in "e-waste" is becoming an urgent industrial demand.

But the emerging technology industry in the early development of how difficult. Even if the team of young people mentioned above has been able to realize the power battery recycling technology with commercial capability, no downstream company dares to try it.

Until 2010, the relevant industry standards were submitted for approval, the situation was finally opened; five years later, the leading listed company of power battery became the major shareholder of the company. In the past 15 years, the company has become a leading power recycling company.

The company, called Guangdong Bangpu Recycling Technology Co., Ltd., is a small invisible giant located in Foshan.

Information map.

"Difficult" transition decision

Entrepreneurship starts with seemingly risky decisions.

In 2001, Li Changdong worked as the production director of haopeng battery factory, with a monthly salary of more than 10000 yuan, which was already a considerable income level at that time.

"In the battery industry at that time, because of its outstanding advantages such as high energy density, long cycle life, small self discharge rate, no memory effect and environmental protection, lithium-ion battery gradually became one of the fastest growing and largest market capacity in the secondary battery demand market." Li hemin, vice president of Bangpu cycle, recalled to the reporter that the wide application of lithium batteries brought about the rapid expansion of upstream mineral resources and downstream carrier industries of lithium batteries. In addition, the government's strong support for the lithium battery industry made the whole lithium battery industry one of the hottest industries at that time.

However, Li Changdong soon discovered the real pain point of the industry. However, at that time, no one seemed to realize this point, or did not want to seize the opportunity, namely lithium battery recycling.

"Although the recycling process seems to be at the end of the industry, if there is no such link, the lithium battery industry chain will inevitably become" big in the middle and blocked at both ends "in the future development Li hemin further analyzed that at that time, most investors focused on the front-end production and middle consumption links, and the recycling link was often regarded as "garbage collection" and "garbage collection" and was ignored.

In fact, problems have emerged at that time: it is difficult to deal with leftovers and substandard products produced in the process of battery production. If they are handed over to the Environmental Protection Bureau, they will have to pay a huge amount of treatment fees. If they are not paid, the emissions will be substandard. In addition, at that time, the production of nickel and cobalt used in batteries in China basically depended on imports, and the cost was higher and higher.

So Li Changdong began to have an idea: can these battery waste be recycled for subsequent recycling, revitalize the industrial links?

Then he set about. At the end of 2002, Li Changdong quit his job in the battery factory, went to the market to do front-line research, and looked for partners, secretly raising strength.

After exploring, he decided that battery recycling will be a career full of opportunities and beneficial to the country and the people. Therefore, in December 2005, we raised 500000 yuan with our partners, and the Bangpu cycle was established, and Li Changdong served as the general manager.

As a third-party business, the main role of Bangpu as a third-party business is similar to that in the early stage. As mentioned earlier, the lithium battery industry was booming, and the scrap metal trading market was booming. According to Li hemin, "as long as you are not afraid of being tired or dirty, you will not worry about selling the goods when you get them."

It's in the process of accumulating capital. However, Li Changdong's "ambition" also extended, and he began to think: can his enterprise start to do the next step, extract valuable resources from waste batteries, and then use them for the production of new batteries, that is, to revitalize these waste battery resources independently and reuse them.

"There was a lot of internal debate at that time." Li and min still remember it now. To participate in the reuse process means that enterprises need to recruit teams to carry out relevant technology research and develop production lines, as well as the ability to realize industrialization of research results.

In the end, the founding team agreed to move from trade to product development. In 2008, the construction of the first plant (Changsha base) of Bangpu cycle started to expand the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, which has become the rudiment of the company's current business.

Leap over "Death Valley" and usher in gale

After investment in R & D and production, the selection of technical route has become an extremely important key node, which also allows the bang Pu cycle to preempt the development opportunities among industries.

At the beginning of the 21st century, driven by consumer batteries, the battery material was mainly lithium cobalt oxide. Therefore, at the beginning of the transformation, bang Pu used cobalt trioxide as its main product. Around 2009, the new energy vehicle industry began to emerge. In this process, ternary lithium battery has become the core of attention because it can better meet the needs of automobile use.

"We have decided to change our product strategy from cobalt tetroxide to ternary materials." Li hemin recalls that it seems to have been an extremely accurate decision so far.

This is an endogenous development level. In fact, with the ecological development of the new energy vehicle industry to a certain degree of maturity, the role of the key links began to invest in the upstream and downstream, thus forming a strong binding ecological relationship, which has become a new direction of industrial development.

The same is true for the bang up cycle. In 2015, Ningde times, a leading power battery company, became its controlling shareholder by way of shareholding, which was further promoted to a new stage of development.

Li hemin pointed out to reporters, "relying on the technical and resource advantages of the parent company and the perfect industrial chain layout, bang Pu can benefit from business collaboration, further optimize the business structure, and accelerate the global strategic layout with the strategic support of the parent company."

It seems that the development of the bang Pu cycle is smooth, but it is not. As any new industrial role will face in the market, in the early days, the company has been sitting on the "cold stool" for a long time.

"The most painful thing is that many battery factories dare not use them (cobalt salt, nickel salt and other products developed) after we have successfully developed and mass produced them. Although the product purity and performance indicators are very excellent, even the cost is cheaper than imported ore Li hemin said that the reason was that the country did not have such testing methods and quality standards for products made from recycled resources at that time.

Through the follow-up active communication and coordination with relevant departments and Standards Committee, until the end of 2009, bang Pu cycle finally got the opportunity to participate in the development and drafting of relevant national standards, and became the leading drafting unit of national battery recycling standards.

"Since then, our products have entered the market smoothly and have been recognized by customers. Up to now, trump has led or participated in the formulation and revision of nearly 200 standards related to waste battery recycling and battery material recycling, and has more than 300 technical patents. " He said.

In 2008, the business of bang Pu cycle expanded again and started the automobile dismantling project. But obviously, at that time, the industry was still lack of relevant technology and talents. The university has started to dismantle the automobile production line and built a production line with the University. Then, through technical improvement, the high value recycling of end-of-life vehicles is further realized, and the disassembly of electric vehicles and power batteries are compatible.

The external environment has also been changing in recent years. With the decline of national subsidies for new energy and the continuous evolution of power battery technology route, challenges are still emerging.

"Trump's revenue has been climbing in recent years. Overall, although the decline in subsidies has a certain impact on market demand, the overall development trend of the industry is good. " Li hemin pointed out to reporters that with the release of the "new energy vehicle industry development plan (2021-2035)", he believed that the prospect of the new energy vehicle industry would be bright.

Of course, there is no need to be blindly optimistic. He added that while seeing the opportunities, we should not ignore the pain points and difficulties in the new energy vehicle market.

"In my opinion, the" difficulty "of the new energy vehicle market lies in the fact that the new energy vehicle has not formed effective competitiveness in the competition with traditional vehicles, and the core of improving competitiveness is cost control and technological innovation, that is to create products with high cost performance ratio." Li hemin said that only through continuous innovation can an enterprise maintain its vitality and cross the "Death Valley", and the most important thing in technological innovation is the differentiation of technical route selection and product positioning design.

"Although the current technical route of the bang Pu cycle is quite mature, it will continue to improve the process, strengthen research and development, and provide products with higher cost performance. When we achieve this goal, the core competitiveness and profitability will naturally increase. " He concluded.

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