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Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

tech.supercarblondie.com

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Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#81

Post by mbgerring »

simondotau wrote: post #22

This article is poor, because lithium is just one part of the value contained within EV batteries. Far more valuable is any nickel, cobalt and graphite. Equally valuable is any copper and aluminium. Unless you're effectively recycling a significant number of the major materials, it's not enough. Furthermore, it's not a remarkable achievement. By contrast to this headline, Redwood Materials claims "Redwood’s technolog…

The battery supply chain is moving away from NMC because of the myriad problems with nickel and cobalt and has been for a long time.

Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#83

Post by mbgerring »

feverzsj wrote: post #73
est wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whataboutism and fake news https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61481-y https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-recovery-mat...

According to the latest report from a state owned media, 75% of used batteries end up in underground workshops. [0]: https://www.yicai.com/news/103030411.html

Not surprising, a bunch of used EV batteries often end up in my underground workshop. They’re great for making portable battery packs.

Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#86

Post by legitster »

cyphar wrote: post #21

It really should not be surprising that we can get very high recovery percentages from batteries -- we do not mine elemental lithium, so the processes we use for extraction are already designed to extract lithium from fairly low-purity sources. In contrast, lithium batteries are an incredibly high-purity source of lithium. The main question is when it will become cost-effective to create recycling pipelines. Lead aci…

This is probably somewhat true, but also I suspect there might be an order of magnitude difference from extracting trace lithium from inert rock vs collecting it as a salt from amongst a medley of very refined metals.

Case in point - lead acid batteries are not a fair comparison. A lead acid battery is so robust you can separate the cathodes and anodes with your (gloved) hands. Getting the elements out of a lead battery is like picking pieces of pepperoni off of a pizza. Whereas taking lithium out of a lithium cell is like pulling only a certain protein out of a roll of bologna. And the protein catches fire in contact with air.

Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#88

Post by legitster »

akssri wrote: post #62

Some geopolitical context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senkaku_boat_collision_in... https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme... Japan was one of the first countries to be hit with rare-earth export-restrictions by China - going back to 2010. It seems that a lot of policy came out from this unpleasant shock, incl. the decision by Toyota to focus on developing FCEVs which would be less depend…

There's a reason Japan could be burdened with the largest modern nuclear disaster and then choose to double down on nuclear capacity. It's an island nation with no domestic energy reserves - completely dependent on energy markets.

FCEVs make no sense if you have plenty of fossil fuel or access to cheap lithium batteries. But if you see hydrogen as a less resource-bottlenecked way to store energy, it starts to make sense.

Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#89

Post by imtringued »

eecc wrote: post #85
trhway wrote: post #82

lithium is $22/kg, 100KWh battery is 10kg lithium, i.e. the question is can you do it for $200?

There are other forces besides market prices... regulatory compliance comes to mind..

Or the fact that China is the primary source of lithium and if Chinese car brands start exporting their cars worldwide, there is no reason for them give the raw resources to western car manufacturers, forcing them to buy the whole battery pack from China.

Re: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries

#90

Post by topato »

akssri wrote: post #62

Some geopolitical context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senkaku_boat_collision_in... https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme... Japan was one of the first countries to be hit with rare-earth export-restrictions by China - going back to 2010. It seems that a lot of policy came out from this unpleasant shock, incl. the decision by Toyota to focus on developing FCEVs which would be less depend…

I’ve always been amazed at how differently the PHEV, HFC, and standard EV market ended up (well, until recently) playing out, in Japan Vs The Rest of the World. I always found the hydrogen stations here in California to be an interesting anomaly — but once you learn about the infrastructure and vehicles forced on the Japanese by gov/corp alliance, you really get a fascinating ‘alternate reality/history’ localized entirely on the island of Japan lol
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