Capital Equipment News July 2021

MATERIALS HANDLING

He says advances have been made over the last year in terms of the recyclability of lithium-ion batteries, notably in Germany where companies are recycling between 90 and 95% of their lithium batteries. “Those batteries contain valuable cobalt and nickel that can be reclaimed. It is key to EIE Group that they don’t go to landfill, and to have a sustainable solution to recycle them. Local company Enviroserv is actively working on a sustainability plan.” Light says a ‘green’ future in the materials handling equipment industry will include “short-term” technologies that will reduce carbon footprints in the industry. “Important advancements on lithium-ion technology are constantly being made and have led to lithium solid-state technology, which offers many improvements to today’s lithium- ion. These include longer run time and shorter charging times.” He says the content of some of the less sustainable metals in lithium-ion batteries has also been reduced. Going off-grid The final step in eliminating a customer’s carbon footprint is for them to go off-grid and, once again, lithium-ion technology has a role to play, this time in its guise as second-life lithium-ion: “Once you’ve replaced a set of batteries,” says Light, “they can have a second life in backup storage. Secondhand batteries can act as a battery bank for backup and power storage with a solar installation, for example.” Hean says a local supplier of lithium-ion batteries already has twelve solar sites in South Africa which are used to charge these batteries. “We, too, are looking at providing our customers with solar charging stations where they can charge their electrical equipment and not be fully reliant on grid power. This will be an intermediary phase before we develop and supply solutions such as hydrogen fuel cells. “Some of our corporate clients have over 30 units on site. It would make perfect sense for them to have a space in their factories where they can recharge their forklifts using solar energy, so mitigating the risk posed by the current, unreliable power supply. Such charging stations would also provide another ‘battery’ for energy storage.” developing hydrogen cells for the materials handling market, through cooperation with Exxon Mobil which specialises in solutions such as fuel cells. “South Africa is probably four to five years away from implementing this technology, but other countries may get there sooner.” Toyota, says Light, regards hydrogen fuel cells as the “ultimate goal” from a green perspective. “Toyota Japan is currently in the testing phase of its hydrogen fuel cell forklift trucks,” he says. “This technology is very far along the development phase and the first results are looking extremely positive.” He says investment on a large scale is needed for hydrogen fuel cell technology to “make sense in any economy”. “We need infrastructure investment in hydrogen production facilities. This investment is currently very high from a capital cost perspective. Realistically speaking, we won’t see this as a popular trend in the South African market for the next five or so years, which is why lithium-ion batteries continue to play a major role in the industry for Toyota.” b Hydrogen fuel cells He says EIE Group is currently “very much involved” in

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