Abstract: This paper studies the decision-making of recycling modes in power battery reverse supply chains under the background of process innovation in remanufacturing power batteries. The profit decision models of power battery manufacturer recycling, new energy vehicle manufacturer recycling and both recycling in reverse supply chains are established respectively. The effects of different recycling modes on the process innovation level, recycling amount and profit of remanufacturing power batteries are analyzed, so as to determine the optimal process innovation level and recycling mode. The study shows that: 1) recycling by NEV manufacturers is the most detrimental to the recycling and process innovation of power batteries, while when both recycling and the proportion of waste batteries recycled by PB producers is 0.67, the recycling amount of waste batteries and the level of process innovation are the highest; 2) the profit of PB producers and NEV manufacturers are always the lowest when the other party is responsible for recycling, but they can obtain the highest profit under the joint recycling mode when the recycling proportion of PB producers is greater than 0.33; 3) regardless of the recycling mode, the lower the input cost coefficient of remanufacturing power battery process innovation and the difficulty of recycling waste batteries and the higher the impact of process innovation level on cost savings, the higher the recycling amount of waste batteries, the level of process innovation and the profit of reverse supply chains.

Key words: process innovation, power battery, recycling mode, reverse supply chain