TWM674837U - Battery crushing system - Google Patents

Abstract

A battery crushing system, used to process discarded batteries, comprises a cryogenic discharge device, a conveying device, and a crushing device. The cryogenic discharge device is filled with gas and discharges the cooled batteries. The conveying device, located downstream of the cryogenic discharge device, transports the batteries from the cryogenic discharge device to the crushing device under a protective atmosphere for crushing.

Description

Battery crushing system

The present invention relates to a battery processing system, in particular to a battery crushing processing system.

Traditional battery recycling typically involves crushing spent batteries for subsequent reuse. However, if the batteries are crushed before their residual energy is released, they can easily short-circuit and release a large amount of heat, potentially leading to hazards such as combustion and explosion. Therefore, for safety reasons, spent batteries are typically discharged before being crushed. However, the discharge process also generates a large amount of heat. To prevent combustion from this short-circuit heat release, the spent batteries must be cooled during the discharge process.

Currently, most of the industry chooses to slowly discharge waste batteries by immersing them in salt water, or directly crushing them after cooling them in liquid nitrogen to solidify the electrolyte. However, these methods have their own shortcomings. For example, while discharging by immersing in salt water can avoid violent reactions of the electrolyte inside the battery, it also produces a large amount of waste water and waste gas during the process, and can also cause damage to some economically valuable components, hindering subsequent recycling. While immersing waste batteries in liquid nitrogen for low-temperature cooling and then directly crushing them is a direct and simple process, it requires a larger equipment storage space, and attention must be paid to the reaction of the battery during the processing process, resulting in increased space and equipment costs and risk considerations. Furthermore, the batteries are susceptible to temperature fluctuations or moisture absorption during the period between discharge and crushing, due to varying storage and operating conditions. This can lead to the batteries entering the crushing equipment experiencing temperature fluctuations or environmental influences, making it difficult to control the temperature during crushing or the post-crushing processing conditions.

Therefore, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a battery crushing and processing system for processing discarded batteries, which can avoid pollution to the environment and effectively maintain the stability of recycled batteries before crushing.

Therefore, the new battery crushing and processing system includes a low-temperature discharge device, a conveying device, and a crushing device.

The low-temperature discharge device includes a cooling chamber, a discharge unit, and a temperature control unit. The cooling chamber is filled with gas and is used to place the battery. The temperature control unit has a controller that controls the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber to between -60°C and 0°C to cool the battery. The discharge unit can discharge the cooled battery.

The conveying device is located downstream of the low-temperature discharge device and includes a conveying unit and a protection unit. The conveying unit is used to receive and convey the discharged battery from the low-temperature discharge device. The protection unit has a shell and an air supply component. The shell is connected to the cooling chamber and covers the conveying unit to form a conveying space for conveying the battery. The air supply component can supply gas to the conveying space.

The crushing device is arranged downstream of the conveying device and is used for receiving and crushing the battery led out from the conveying unit.

The utility of this new device lies in utilizing gas cooling to allow the conveying device used to transport batteries for crushing to operate under an inert atmosphere. This prevents the batteries from being affected by the operating environment during transport to the crushing device, allowing them to be crushed under stable conditions, making it easier to control the associated recycling process.

Before the present invention is described in detail, it should be noted that similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals in the following description.

The relevant technical content, features and effects of the present invention will be clearly presented in the detailed description of the embodiments below with reference to the drawings. In addition, it should be noted that the drawings of the present invention only show the relative structure and/or position of the components and are not related to the actual size of each component.

Referring to Figures 1 and 2, the present invention discloses a novel battery crushing and processing system for processing discarded batteries. One embodiment of the battery crushing and processing system comprises a low-temperature discharge device 2, a reheating and material processing device 3, a buffer cooling device 4, a conveying device 5, a crushing device 6, and a post-processing device 7.

The discarded batteries are sequentially cryogenically cooled and discharged in the low-temperature discharge device 2 to reduce their capacity to a certain residual capacity. The discharged batteries are then transported to the reheating and sorting device 3, allowing subsequent processing operations, such as post-discharge battery sorting and sorting, to be carried out at room temperature, avoiding low-temperature environments. Since the batteries will warm up after the sorting process, they are transported to the buffer cooling device 4 before being crushed to a lower temperature. They are then transported to the crushing device 6 via the conveying device 5 for crushing. Finally, the post-processing device 7 dries the residual solvent and moisture from the crushed battery particles and sorts them according to material properties or particle size, thus completing the crushing of the discarded batteries.

Specifically, the low-temperature discharge device 2 includes a housing 20 , a cooling chamber 21 disposed within the housing 20 , a discharge unit 22 , and a temperature control unit 23 .

The cooling chamber 21 is filled with gas and serves as a storage location for discarded batteries. The discharge unit 22 discharges the batteries, forcing them to release any remaining power. The temperature control unit 23 cools the batteries within the cooling chamber 21 and comprises a controller 231 and a sensor 232. The controller 231 controls the temperature of the gas within the cooling chamber 21 to between -60°C and 0°C to cool the batteries. The sensor 232 is signal-connected to the controller 231 to sense either the temperature of the gas within the cooling chamber 21 or the temperature of the batteries to generate a temperature sensing signal. The controller 231 can adjust the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber 21 according to the temperature sensing signal measured by the sensor 232 during the discharge process to continuously cool the battery and avoid safety issues caused by temperature rise during the discharge process.

In this embodiment, the controller 231 is a heat exchanger having a plurality of cooling tubes 231a disposed on the sidewalls of the cooling chamber 21 and a supply unit (not shown) for supplying a coolant to the cooling tubes 231a. The supply unit adjusts the flow rate of the coolant based on the temperature sensing signal obtained by the sensor 232 to cool the gas filling the cooling chamber 21, thereby controlling the chamber temperature of the cooling chamber 21.

Furthermore, it should be noted that this embodiment is described as an example in which the discharge unit 22 and the cooling chamber 21 are integrated into the housing 20 and are placed separately. However, in actual implementation, the housing 20 may be omitted, or the discharge unit 22 may be further integrated into the cooling chamber 21. The present invention is not limited to the structure shown in the embodiment.

The gas is used to directly cool the battery to a predetermined low temperature, allowing the battery placed in the cooling chamber 21 to discharge. The low temperature reduces the intense heat release or other chemical reaction activity that would otherwise be generated during the discharge process, and absorbs the heat energy released by the discharge, thereby ensuring the safety of the battery during the discharge process.

The reheating and tidying device 3 is operated at room temperature and is used to accommodate discharged batteries for processing operations such as battery sorting and sorting. Since the battery processing is carried out at room temperature, it facilitates the handling and processing of the discharged batteries. Therefore, the temperature of the batteries after being tidyed in the reheating and tidying device 3 rises from a low temperature, forming a reheated battery, and the temperature of the reheated battery is not less than 20°C.

The buffer cooling device 4 is located downstream of the regenerative unit 3 and includes a cooling chamber 41 and a temperature control unit 42. The cooling chamber 41 defines a cooling chamber filled with cooling gas for the regenerative battery discharged from the regenerative unit 3. The temperature control unit 42 is used to control the temperature of the gas within the cooling chamber 41 to ≤ -20°C, allowing the regenerative battery within the cooling chamber 41 to be cooled by the gas, forming a low-temperature battery.

In this embodiment, the structure and operation of the temperature control unit 42 of the buffer cooling device 4 are the same as those of the temperature control unit 23 of the low-temperature discharge device 2, and therefore, they will not be described in detail here.

The conveying device 5 is located downstream of the buffer cooling device 4 and communicates with the cooling chamber 41. It includes a conveying unit 51 and a protective unit 52. The conveying unit 51 has a conveyor belt 511 for receiving and conveying the low-temperature batteries from the cooling chamber 41. The protective unit 52 has a housing 521, an air supply member 522, and a cooling member 523. The housing 521 communicates with the cooling chamber 41 and covers the conveying unit 51 to form a closed conveying space. The air supply member 522 can input gas into the conveying space, and the cooling member 523 can be used to cool the gas input into the conveying space. By forming a closed conveying space with the protective unit 52 and allowing cooling gas to be introduced into the conveying space, the low-temperature battery discharged from the buffer cooling device 4 can be isolated from the operating environment before entering the crushing device 6, and a certain low temperature state can be maintained throughout the entire conveying process, thereby reducing the impact of the operating environment on the low-temperature battery and reducing the danger caused by the low-temperature battery not being able to cool down to a low temperature in time when the battery is crushed in the crushing device 6.

The gas input from the air supply component 522 is a cooled inert gas, which not only maintains the low temperature state of the low temperature battery in the transportation space, but also ensures that the low temperature battery will not react with any potentially active gas during the transportation process due to long-term exposure to the transportation space, causing hazards to personnel operation.

In this embodiment, the protection unit 52 is provided with both the air supply component 522 and the cooling component 523. However, in some embodiments, the protection unit 52 may only have the air supply component 522 for conveying inert gas, thereby preventing the low-temperature battery conveying process from being affected by the operating environment.

The crushing device 6 is disposed downstream of the conveying device 5 to receive and crush the low-temperature batteries discharged from the conveying unit 51 .

The crushing device 6 includes a crushing unit 61 and a temperature control unit 62 .

The crushing unit 61 comprises a container 611 and a crushing element 612. The container 611 receives the low-temperature batteries from the conveyor 5, and the crushing element 612 crushes the low-temperature batteries into a plurality of crushed particles. The temperature control unit 62 regulates the internal temperature of the container 611 to no more than 10°C. This prevents the low-temperature batteries from continuously accumulating heat energy from friction with the crushing element 612 and electrolyte reactions during the crushing process, thereby preventing combustion, explosion, and other hazards to personnel or equipment.

Specifically, the temperature control unit 62 includes a temperature sensor (not shown) for measuring the internal temperature of the tank 611 and a nitrogen supply (not shown) for supplying nitrogen. The nitrogen supply adjusts the temperature and flow rate of the nitrogen into the tank 611 based on the temperature sensor's detection results, thereby controlling the internal temperature of the tank 611 and allowing the battery to be crushed in a low-temperature environment (between -10°C and 10°C).

The post-processing device 7 includes a drying unit 71 disposed downstream of the crushing unit 61 , a sorting unit 72 disposed downstream of the drying unit 71 , and a conveyor belt 73 connecting the drying unit 71 and the sorting unit 72 .

The drying unit 71 removes residual liquids, such as solvents and moisture, from the pulverized particles through heat treatment. The conveyor belt 73 transports the dried pulverized particles to the sorting unit 72. The sorting unit 72 can sort the pulverized particles after passing through the drying device based on at least one of their size and material properties. The sorting unit 72 is selected from at least one of a size screen, a magnetic separator, an eddy current separator, or a specific gravity separator.

In this embodiment, the separation unit 72 is described as including a magnetic separator for separating magnetic materials and a size screening machine for size-separating the crushed particles after magnetic separation, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

This novel battery crushing and processing system cools the discarded batteries using gas cooling before discharging them. This reduces waste liquid generation and prevents environmental pollution. Furthermore, the protective unit 52 forms a closed conveying space into which cooling gas can be introduced. This helps isolate the low-temperature batteries from the buffer cooling device 4 from the operating environment before entering the crushing device 6, allowing them to maintain a relatively low temperature throughout the entire conveying process. This reduces the impact of the operating environment on the low-temperature batteries and reduces the risk of them not cooling down quickly enough during crushing within the crushing device 6. Furthermore, the new battery crushing system, through the reheating and bulking device 3 and the buffer cooling device 4, enables personnel to transport and temporarily store discharged batteries in a relatively room temperature environment. The batteries can also be pre-cooled before being crushed to avoid safety issues for the equipment and personnel caused by excessively high battery temperatures during the crushing process after the batteries have been reheated.

Furthermore, it should be noted that when there is no need to perform other operations such as reshaping of discharged batteries, the battery crushing system can be configured without the reheating and reshaping device 3 and the buffer cooling device 4, depending on actual operational requirements. Without the reheating and reshaping device 3 and the buffer cooling device 4, the conveyor device 5 is connected to the low-temperature discharge device 2, and the low-temperature discharged batteries are directly transported via the conveyor device 5 to the crushing device 6 for crushing.

The following describes a method for crushing discarded batteries using the aforementioned battery crushing system.

1-3 , the battery crushing method includes a low-temperature discharge step 91 , a temperature recovery step 92 , a cooling step 93 , a crushing step 94 , a drying step 95 , and a screening step 96 .

The low-temperature discharge step 91 utilizes the low-temperature discharge device 2 to cool the battery to be discarded to a low-temperature discharge temperature by gas cooling. The low-temperature discharge temperature is between -60°C and 0°C.

In some embodiments, the low-temperature discharge temperature is between -60°C and -20°C. Preferably, the low-temperature discharge temperature is between -40°C and -20°C, and the battery is discharged to a residual charge no greater than 80% of the original charge.

The reheating and sorting step 92 is to place the discharged battery in a reheating and sorting device 3 at room temperature, and perform sorting and classification at room temperature. The battery will reheat during the sorting and sorting process to form a reheated battery, and the temperature of the reheated battery is not lower than 20°C.

The cooling step 93 is to transfer the regenerative battery to the cooling chamber 41 of the buffer cooling device 4 and cool the regenerative battery to ≤-20°C using gas, thereby forming a low-temperature battery within the cooling chamber 41. Preferably, the cooling step 93 is to cool the regenerative battery to a temperature between -20°C and -40°C using gas.

The crushing step 94 involves conveying the low-temperature battery to a conveyor 5, which then conveys the low-temperature battery to a crushing device 6 for crushing to form a plurality of pulverized particles. The conveyor 5 conveys the low-temperature battery under an inert atmosphere at a temperature not exceeding 10°C, and the crushing device 6 crushes the low-temperature battery at a temperature between -10°C and 10°C.

In some embodiments, the size of the pulverized particles is between 1 and 2 centimeters.

Next, the drying step 95 and the screening step 96 are performed.

The drying step 95 is to dry the pulverized particles by heat treatment to remove residual liquid, such as moisture and solvent, from the pulverized particles. The screening step 96 is to sort the pulverized particles after the drying step 95 according to at least one of size and material properties.

In addition, when the battery crushing and processing system is not equipped with the reheating and batching device 3 and the buffer cooling device 4, or when the crushing and processing method does not require the reheating and batching step 92 and the cooling step 93, the crushing step 94 can be performed after the low-temperature discharge step 91. The low-temperature discharged batteries are directly led out to the conveying device 5 and transported to the crushing device 6 for crushing, and subsequent steps can be performed.

In summary, the present battery crushing and processing system discharges discarded batteries through gas cooling, consuming the battery's residual power at low temperatures. Furthermore, during the process of transporting the discharged batteries to the crushing device 6 using the conveying unit 51, a conveying space isolated from the operating environment is formed by the protective unit 52. Low-temperature inert gas is then introduced into the conveying space, maintaining a certain low temperature throughout the entire conveying process. This reduces the impact of the operating environment on the low-temperature batteries and any dangers caused by the batteries not being able to cool down quickly enough during crushing within the crushing device 6. Furthermore, if other operations are required before crushing the low-temperature discharged batteries, the reheating and sorting device 3 can be used to facilitate the transportation and sorting of the discharged batteries at room temperature. Furthermore, the buffer cooling device 4 can be used to further cool the reheated batteries, which have been reheated after transportation and sorting, before crushing, to form low-temperature batteries. This makes it easier to control the temperature of the batteries before they are introduced into the crushing device 6, thereby maintaining stability during crushing. Therefore, the purpose of this novel device can be achieved.

However, the above description is only an example of the present invention and should not be used to limit the scope of the present invention. All simple equivalent changes and modifications made according to the scope of the patent application and the content of the patent specification are still within the scope of the present patent.

2: Low-temperature discharge device 20: Housing 21: Cooling chamber 22: Discharge unit 23: Temperature control unit 231: Controller 231a: Cooling tube 232: Sensor 3: Reheating and sintering device 4: Buffer cooling device 41: Cooling chamber 42: Temperature control unit 5: Conveyor device 51: Conveyor unit 511: Conveyor belt 52: Protective unit 521: Housing Body 522: Air supply unit 523: Cooling unit 6: Crushing device 61: Crushing unit 611: Container 612: Crushing unit 62: Temperature control unit 7: Post-processing unit 71: Drying unit 72: Sorting unit 73: Conveyor belt 91: Low-temperature discharge step 92: Reheating and sorting step 93: Cooling step 94: Crushing step 95: Drying step 96: Screening step

Other features and functions of the present invention will be clearly presented in the embodiment with reference to the drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a side sectional view illustrating a portion of the device of the embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 is a three-dimensional schematic diagram illustrating another portion of the device of the embodiment of the present invention; and Figure 3 is a flow chart illustrating the operating steps of the embodiment of the present invention.

2: Low-temperature discharge device

20: Casing

21: Cooling chamber

22: Discharge unit

23: Temperature control unit

231: Controller

231a: Cooling tube

232: Sensor

3: Reheating and material processing device

4: Buffer cooling device

41: Cooling chamber

42: Temperature control unit

5: Conveyor device

51: Transport unit

511: Conveyor belt

52: Protection unit

521: Shell

522: Air supply parts

523: Cooling Item

6: Crushing device

61: Broken Unit

611: Storage Tank

612: Broken Parts

62: Temperature control unit

Claims (7)

A battery crushing and processing system for processing batteries to be discarded comprises: a low-temperature discharge device including a cooling chamber, a discharge unit, and a temperature control unit. The cooling chamber is filled with gas and is used to place the battery. The temperature control unit has a controller for controlling the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber to between -60°C and 0°C to cool the battery. The discharge unit can discharge the cooled battery; a conveying device located in the low-temperature discharge device. The invention relates to a cooling device comprising a conveying unit and a protection unit, wherein the conveying unit is used to receive and transfer the discharged battery discharged from the low-temperature discharge device, the protection unit has a shell and an air supply component, the shell is connected to the cooling cavity and covers the conveying unit to form a conveying space for conveying the battery, and the air supply component can supply gas to the conveying space; and a crushing device is provided downstream of the conveying device, and is used to receive and crush the battery discharged from the conveying unit. The battery crushing treatment system as described in claim 1 further comprises a reheating and bulking device and a buffer cooling device. The reheating and bulking device is used to accommodate the discharged battery to obtain a reheated battery, and the temperature of the reheated battery is not lower than 20°C. The buffer cooling device is located downstream of the reheating and bulking device and comprises a cooling chamber and a temperature control unit. The cooling chamber is filled with The gas is used to receive the regenerative battery derived from the regenerative material device. The temperature control unit is used to control the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber to ≦-20°C, so that the regenerative battery located in the cooling chamber becomes a low-temperature battery. The conveying device is located downstream of the buffer cooling device and is connected to the cooling chamber, and is used to receive and convey the low-temperature battery derived from the cooling chamber. A battery crushing processing system as described in claim 1, wherein the temperature control unit of the low-temperature discharge device has a controller and a sensor connected to the controller by signal, the sensor is used to sense either the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber or the temperature of the battery to generate a temperature sensing signal, and the controller can adjust and control the temperature of the gas in the cooling chamber based on the temperature sensing signal. The battery crushing processing system as described in claim 1, wherein the gas transported by the gas supply component is an inert gas. In the battery crushing processing system of claim 1, the protection unit further comprises a cooling element for cooling the gas input into the transport space. A battery crushing processing system as described in claim 1, wherein the crushing device includes a crushing unit and a temperature control unit, the crushing unit having a container and a crushing piece, the container is used to receive the battery guided out from the conveying device, the crushing piece is used to crush the battery to form a plurality of crushed particles, and the temperature control unit is used to adjust the internal temperature of the container to no more than 10°C. The battery crushing processing system as described in claim 6 further includes a post-processing device arranged downstream of the crushing unit, the post-processing device including a drying unit and a sorting unit arranged downstream of the drying unit, the drying unit removes residual liquid in the crushed particles by heat treatment, the sorting unit sorts the crushed particles passing through the drying unit according to at least one of the size and material properties of the crushed particles, and the sorting unit is selected from at least one of a size screen, a magnetic separator, a vortex current separator, and a specific gravity separator.