At the beginning of the new year, Huaining County of Anhui Province was exposed with “excessive incident of blood leadâ€: more than 200 children in Gaohe Township of the county were sent to Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital for blood lead examination. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 100 blood lead children. On January 6, the Huaining County Party Committee and County Government announced that it was initially determined that the incident was caused by Borui Power Co., Ltd., which produced lead-acid batteries in the town. The reason is that the company's environmental protection is not up to standard, but it has been secretly produced, and the lead powder produced in the production process has been discharged into the atmosphere in large quantities, leading to excessive levels of lead in children in nearby communities.
In fact, in recent years, environmental pollution incidents in the production of lead-acid batteries have occurred repeatedly throughout the country. In 2010, only nine pollution incidents of lead-acid batteries notified by the Ministry of Environmental Protection were reported.
How is lead-acid battery pollution caused? The following article answers. The author of the article is the director of the Jiangsu Changshu Hezhong Environmental Energy Technology Research Institute and has conducted long-term follow-up studies on the safety of various types of storage batteries. The newspaper has published "Lithium Battery, Angels and Devils."
Lead-acid batteries are currently the main force in the field of batteries. Without a lead-acid battery, only about 100 million electric bicycles in China would not be able to start because 93% of electric bicycles use lead-acid batteries; there are still 200 million cars on the road because all Cars need lead-acid batteries to help start.
Lead-acid batteries are very environmentally friendly and do not emit any pollutants. This is why electric bicycles give people a good impression of greenness, environmental protection, and no pollution. However, due to the disordered management of lead-acid batteries in China, pollution in the production and recycling process is very serious.
Lead pollution runs through the entire industry chain. Lead-acid batteries are widely used in the world as a kind of chemical “power supplyâ€. They have the advantages of stable voltage, safety, reliability, low price, wide application range, abundant raw materials and high recycling rate. A battery that produces the largest amount of batteries, uses the most, and uses the longest time. Currently widely used in automobiles, electric motorcycles, electric bicycles, power tools, electric toys, emergency lighting systems, fire protection systems and other fields. It consumes 82% of the world's total lead consumed.
The lead-acid battery was invented in 1859. The French Plante sandwiched a piece of cotton cloth between two pieces of lead metal, stuffed them into a glass bottle filled with rare earth, and used a DC generator to charge the battery, so that the weak current was stored. In the battery. The technical principle of lead-acid batteries has not changed much so far.
At present, China is the world's largest producer, consumer, and exporter of lead-acid batteries, and its output accounts for more than 40% of the world's total output. During the five years of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†period, China’s output and export of lead-acid batteries averaged 19.9% ​​and 22.8% annually. According to statistics from the China Battery Industry Association, in 2010, there were more than 3,000 lead-acid battery manufacturers in China. When the annual production capacity exceeded 100 million kVA, the total sales of lead-acid batteries exceeded 100 billion yuan. Lead metal consumption exceeds 2 million tons.
After several decades of development, China's lead-acid batteries have formed a huge industrial chain and there have been numerous manufacturing companies and parts and components supporting companies.
At the same time, the vigorous development of lead-acid batteries gave birth to the market for lead metal. In recent years, the price of lead metal has remained at a high level, which has led to the growth and development of more lead mines, the refining of lead metals, the regeneration and extraction of waste lead electrodes, and the mixing of battery lead alloys. Increasing taxes, GDP, employment, etc., have indeed made a great contribution.
However, as we all know, lead is a heavy metal and it has serious pollution to the human body, the environment and the ecology. Lead pollution runs through the entire process of refining, processing, battery production, and battery recycling. Workers who deal with lead often suffer the most from pollution. Therefore, if such workers fail to protect themselves, excessive levels of blood lead will lead to lead poisoning. Therefore, from time to time throughout the country will be reported news of production workers and nearby residents of excessive lead and lead poisoning. This is a practical problem that lead-acid battery manufacturers cannot avoid in the process of production and recycling.
At the same time, in order to increase the specific energy (unit weight or energy per unit volume) and cycle life of lead-acid batteries, manufacturers will incorporate heavy metals such as antimony, zirconium, and calcium in lead metal, which are called ternary and quaternary plates. The battery performance is better, but the pollution is even worse. In order to reduce the level of pollution, in recent years, some domestic battery manufacturers have announced that incorporation of rare earth elements in lead metal, and less or no use of calcium and other heavy metals, pollution will reduce some. In general, however, with the increase in the use of lead-acid batteries, pollution from its manufacture, lead metal extraction, and recycling has not been alleviated, but has increased.
Lead pollution in the world is mainly focused on the issue of lead-acid battery pollution in China. Developed countries such as the European Union and the United States have already restricted the development of lead-acid battery manufacturing in the country, and have instead mainly purchased from developing countries such as China or set up factories in developing countries. Even Indian companies are manufacturing lead-acid batteries in China. China is still complacent about the increase in GDP for the introduction of foreign capital and export of batteries.
The production of lead-acid batteries does not require special raw materials. Why do not developed countries produce their own? In fact, everyone knows that the main reason is that lead-acid batteries are prone to pollution. This is also the major reason why lead-acid battery production in the world is mainly concentrated in China, and China's lead-acid battery production is mainly concentrated in rural or urban-rural areas. Waste lead-acid batteries are recognized worldwide as hazardous waste. The European and American countries not only do not produce lead-acid batteries at home, but even recycling lead-acid batteries are carried out in developing countries such as China. Imports from developing countries, use of scrap and then shipped back to developing countries, the disposal of such "foreign garbage" by developing countries, the pollution is in developing countries.
Compared with domestic enterprises, the production process of the giants of the world's battery companies is much better than the protective measures of workers, but they cannot avoid lead pollution. A few years ago, the media had revealed that several employees of Panasonic’s company in Wuxi were found to have exceeded the standard of blood lead.
Regulate the entire industry chain is the right way Since the lead-acid battery is seriously polluted, then do not you just need to abandon it? Unfortunately, although the people hate lead pollution, China is still unable to get rid of the production of lead-acid batteries at this stage. The power does not say that in order to preserve the glory of GDP, hundreds of millions of electric bicycles, tens of millions of car-starting batteries, venue-vehicle batteries, and low-speed electric vehicles are all indispensable to lead-acid batteries. Excluding these traditional markets, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the country will vigorously develop emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, renewable energy storage batteries, and other areas. The initial stage of promotion will not be without lead-acid batteries. There is also a greater demand for foreign markets.
Facing the unlimited business opportunities in the domestic and foreign markets, lead-acid battery projects have now appeared in many places. It has long been predicted by industry insiders that China's lead-acid battery production will only increase and not decrease in the long run.
A practical and feasible approach is to achieve green production in the lead-acid battery production, recycling and refining of lead. This topic has been spoken for many years but the effect is not obvious. The fundamental reason is that the government has not taken it seriously.
First, the ore smelting lead must be standardized. Large enterprises that meet the standards are responsible for the lead smelting of ore, and those small enterprises that do not meet the standard are not allowed to refine. This can greatly reduce pollution in the refining area. In 2007, China promulgated the “Entry Requirements for Lead and Zinc Industryâ€, which stipulates that lead smelting capacity must reach 50,000 tons/year (excluding 50,000 tons). If you strictly follow this rule, 90% of companies must be eliminated. These lead-smelting enterprises are poorly equipped, unqualified in operation, unsound of pollution control equipment, and lead slag is piled up randomly, causing lead and fog to permeate, causing serious impacts on soil and crops, and occasional poisoning of humans and animals. But until now, these companies that should have been eliminated have lived well. It is suggested that the government should firmly shut down enterprises that cannot meet the requirements of environmental protection, sanitation, epidemic prevention and labor protection.
The second is that lead-acid battery manufacturers must be standardized. Of the more than 3,000 lead-acid companies, only 1,100 have truly obtained the national production license. More than 60% of the companies have not obtained permits and cannot meet the requirements for cleaner production. Even if the company is licensed, the “clean†word in clean production is worth considering. For example, Zhejiang Chaowei Power Co., Ltd., which is suspected of causing excessive levels of blood lead in factories located in Jiangsu, Shandong and other places, is one of the leading domestic lead-acid battery manufacturers and is listed in Hong Kong.
The output value of lead-acid batteries in the entire industry is now 80% to 90% in the top few, while the remaining 2,000 are small. In fact, 50 companies can fully meet the market demand. The state should strengthen the management of the lead-acid battery industry, and should not shut down one eye of the enterprise's pollution, nor should it approve the introduction of a new lead-acid battery manufacturing enterprise.
The third is to regulate recycling. China's lead recycling industry has a considerable gap with developed countries in terms of environmental pollution control, recovery management, and recycling technologies. In general, because there are no relevant regulations, the recycling of waste lead-acid batteries in China is scattered and disorderly.
The original State Environmental Protection Administration issued requirements in 2000. The lead-acid battery factory is responsible for recycling used batteries and specializing in the recovery of lead metal. However, the implementation effect is not satisfactory. At present, people who collect waste products mainly purchase waste batteries, then turn on lead-acid batteries at the urban-rural junctions, discard waste, and sell lead plates and plastic shells to lead smelters and plastic recycling plants, respectively. Most of the lead-smelting plants are located in rural areas and their technology and environmental protection are inaccessible.
In fact, lead-acid battery recycling equipment and processes are mature. Recycling of lead-acid batteries can basically reach 100%. After refining heavy metals such as lead and calcium, it can be refined into lead alloys. At present, the price of lead metal in the international market is high, and the economic benefits of recycling and recycling are not low. After the plastic shell is recycled and recycled, it can be made into PP, PVC or other plastics, or can be made into a battery shell. Waste ** can be refined into sodium, an important raw material for papermaking and glass industry. There are a few large-scale lead-acid battery companies operating in this way, and they can also produce no waste water, waste residue, and waste gas. At the same time, lead pollution and ** pollution can be minimized or even reduced to zero. However, at present, China's lead-acid battery production, recycling, and refining industry chain has not been fully operational. The government's relevant departments have not managed it completely, and the imperfect laws and regulations have not been implemented. It can be said that at present, China's serious lead-acid battery pollution situation, to a certain extent, is caused by the mismanagement of government departments.
In fact, in recent years, environmental pollution incidents in the production of lead-acid batteries have occurred repeatedly throughout the country. In 2010, only nine pollution incidents of lead-acid batteries notified by the Ministry of Environmental Protection were reported.
How is lead-acid battery pollution caused? The following article answers. The author of the article is the director of the Jiangsu Changshu Hezhong Environmental Energy Technology Research Institute and has conducted long-term follow-up studies on the safety of various types of storage batteries. The newspaper has published "Lithium Battery, Angels and Devils."
Lead-acid batteries are currently the main force in the field of batteries. Without a lead-acid battery, only about 100 million electric bicycles in China would not be able to start because 93% of electric bicycles use lead-acid batteries; there are still 200 million cars on the road because all Cars need lead-acid batteries to help start.
Lead-acid batteries are very environmentally friendly and do not emit any pollutants. This is why electric bicycles give people a good impression of greenness, environmental protection, and no pollution. However, due to the disordered management of lead-acid batteries in China, pollution in the production and recycling process is very serious.
Lead pollution runs through the entire industry chain. Lead-acid batteries are widely used in the world as a kind of chemical “power supplyâ€. They have the advantages of stable voltage, safety, reliability, low price, wide application range, abundant raw materials and high recycling rate. A battery that produces the largest amount of batteries, uses the most, and uses the longest time. Currently widely used in automobiles, electric motorcycles, electric bicycles, power tools, electric toys, emergency lighting systems, fire protection systems and other fields. It consumes 82% of the world's total lead consumed.
The lead-acid battery was invented in 1859. The French Plante sandwiched a piece of cotton cloth between two pieces of lead metal, stuffed them into a glass bottle filled with rare earth, and used a DC generator to charge the battery, so that the weak current was stored. In the battery. The technical principle of lead-acid batteries has not changed much so far.
At present, China is the world's largest producer, consumer, and exporter of lead-acid batteries, and its output accounts for more than 40% of the world's total output. During the five years of the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†period, China’s output and export of lead-acid batteries averaged 19.9% ​​and 22.8% annually. According to statistics from the China Battery Industry Association, in 2010, there were more than 3,000 lead-acid battery manufacturers in China. When the annual production capacity exceeded 100 million kVA, the total sales of lead-acid batteries exceeded 100 billion yuan. Lead metal consumption exceeds 2 million tons.
After several decades of development, China's lead-acid batteries have formed a huge industrial chain and there have been numerous manufacturing companies and parts and components supporting companies.
At the same time, the vigorous development of lead-acid batteries gave birth to the market for lead metal. In recent years, the price of lead metal has remained at a high level, which has led to the growth and development of more lead mines, the refining of lead metals, the regeneration and extraction of waste lead electrodes, and the mixing of battery lead alloys. Increasing taxes, GDP, employment, etc., have indeed made a great contribution.
However, as we all know, lead is a heavy metal and it has serious pollution to the human body, the environment and the ecology. Lead pollution runs through the entire process of refining, processing, battery production, and battery recycling. Workers who deal with lead often suffer the most from pollution. Therefore, if such workers fail to protect themselves, excessive levels of blood lead will lead to lead poisoning. Therefore, from time to time throughout the country will be reported news of production workers and nearby residents of excessive lead and lead poisoning. This is a practical problem that lead-acid battery manufacturers cannot avoid in the process of production and recycling.
At the same time, in order to increase the specific energy (unit weight or energy per unit volume) and cycle life of lead-acid batteries, manufacturers will incorporate heavy metals such as antimony, zirconium, and calcium in lead metal, which are called ternary and quaternary plates. The battery performance is better, but the pollution is even worse. In order to reduce the level of pollution, in recent years, some domestic battery manufacturers have announced that incorporation of rare earth elements in lead metal, and less or no use of calcium and other heavy metals, pollution will reduce some. In general, however, with the increase in the use of lead-acid batteries, pollution from its manufacture, lead metal extraction, and recycling has not been alleviated, but has increased.
Lead pollution in the world is mainly focused on the issue of lead-acid battery pollution in China. Developed countries such as the European Union and the United States have already restricted the development of lead-acid battery manufacturing in the country, and have instead mainly purchased from developing countries such as China or set up factories in developing countries. Even Indian companies are manufacturing lead-acid batteries in China. China is still complacent about the increase in GDP for the introduction of foreign capital and export of batteries.
The production of lead-acid batteries does not require special raw materials. Why do not developed countries produce their own? In fact, everyone knows that the main reason is that lead-acid batteries are prone to pollution. This is also the major reason why lead-acid battery production in the world is mainly concentrated in China, and China's lead-acid battery production is mainly concentrated in rural or urban-rural areas. Waste lead-acid batteries are recognized worldwide as hazardous waste. The European and American countries not only do not produce lead-acid batteries at home, but even recycling lead-acid batteries are carried out in developing countries such as China. Imports from developing countries, use of scrap and then shipped back to developing countries, the disposal of such "foreign garbage" by developing countries, the pollution is in developing countries.
Compared with domestic enterprises, the production process of the giants of the world's battery companies is much better than the protective measures of workers, but they cannot avoid lead pollution. A few years ago, the media had revealed that several employees of Panasonic’s company in Wuxi were found to have exceeded the standard of blood lead.
Regulate the entire industry chain is the right way Since the lead-acid battery is seriously polluted, then do not you just need to abandon it? Unfortunately, although the people hate lead pollution, China is still unable to get rid of the production of lead-acid batteries at this stage. The power does not say that in order to preserve the glory of GDP, hundreds of millions of electric bicycles, tens of millions of car-starting batteries, venue-vehicle batteries, and low-speed electric vehicles are all indispensable to lead-acid batteries. Excluding these traditional markets, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the country will vigorously develop emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, renewable energy storage batteries, and other areas. The initial stage of promotion will not be without lead-acid batteries. There is also a greater demand for foreign markets.
Facing the unlimited business opportunities in the domestic and foreign markets, lead-acid battery projects have now appeared in many places. It has long been predicted by industry insiders that China's lead-acid battery production will only increase and not decrease in the long run.
A practical and feasible approach is to achieve green production in the lead-acid battery production, recycling and refining of lead. This topic has been spoken for many years but the effect is not obvious. The fundamental reason is that the government has not taken it seriously.
First, the ore smelting lead must be standardized. Large enterprises that meet the standards are responsible for the lead smelting of ore, and those small enterprises that do not meet the standard are not allowed to refine. This can greatly reduce pollution in the refining area. In 2007, China promulgated the “Entry Requirements for Lead and Zinc Industryâ€, which stipulates that lead smelting capacity must reach 50,000 tons/year (excluding 50,000 tons). If you strictly follow this rule, 90% of companies must be eliminated. These lead-smelting enterprises are poorly equipped, unqualified in operation, unsound of pollution control equipment, and lead slag is piled up randomly, causing lead and fog to permeate, causing serious impacts on soil and crops, and occasional poisoning of humans and animals. But until now, these companies that should have been eliminated have lived well. It is suggested that the government should firmly shut down enterprises that cannot meet the requirements of environmental protection, sanitation, epidemic prevention and labor protection.
The second is that lead-acid battery manufacturers must be standardized. Of the more than 3,000 lead-acid companies, only 1,100 have truly obtained the national production license. More than 60% of the companies have not obtained permits and cannot meet the requirements for cleaner production. Even if the company is licensed, the “clean†word in clean production is worth considering. For example, Zhejiang Chaowei Power Co., Ltd., which is suspected of causing excessive levels of blood lead in factories located in Jiangsu, Shandong and other places, is one of the leading domestic lead-acid battery manufacturers and is listed in Hong Kong.
The output value of lead-acid batteries in the entire industry is now 80% to 90% in the top few, while the remaining 2,000 are small. In fact, 50 companies can fully meet the market demand. The state should strengthen the management of the lead-acid battery industry, and should not shut down one eye of the enterprise's pollution, nor should it approve the introduction of a new lead-acid battery manufacturing enterprise.
The third is to regulate recycling. China's lead recycling industry has a considerable gap with developed countries in terms of environmental pollution control, recovery management, and recycling technologies. In general, because there are no relevant regulations, the recycling of waste lead-acid batteries in China is scattered and disorderly.
The original State Environmental Protection Administration issued requirements in 2000. The lead-acid battery factory is responsible for recycling used batteries and specializing in the recovery of lead metal. However, the implementation effect is not satisfactory. At present, people who collect waste products mainly purchase waste batteries, then turn on lead-acid batteries at the urban-rural junctions, discard waste, and sell lead plates and plastic shells to lead smelters and plastic recycling plants, respectively. Most of the lead-smelting plants are located in rural areas and their technology and environmental protection are inaccessible.
In fact, lead-acid battery recycling equipment and processes are mature. Recycling of lead-acid batteries can basically reach 100%. After refining heavy metals such as lead and calcium, it can be refined into lead alloys. At present, the price of lead metal in the international market is high, and the economic benefits of recycling and recycling are not low. After the plastic shell is recycled and recycled, it can be made into PP, PVC or other plastics, or can be made into a battery shell. Waste ** can be refined into sodium, an important raw material for papermaking and glass industry. There are a few large-scale lead-acid battery companies operating in this way, and they can also produce no waste water, waste residue, and waste gas. At the same time, lead pollution and ** pollution can be minimized or even reduced to zero. However, at present, China's lead-acid battery production, recycling, and refining industry chain has not been fully operational. The government's relevant departments have not managed it completely, and the imperfect laws and regulations have not been implemented. It can be said that at present, China's serious lead-acid battery pollution situation, to a certain extent, is caused by the mismanagement of government departments.