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

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

#161

Post by numpad0 »

freetime2 wrote: post #117
yanhangyhy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you would think they would love it? no. i just found it funny. > Or is there something more going on? I remember BYD actually had to design models specifically tailored to the Japanese market (k-car)—their preferences are honestly so bizarre. I think a lot of this comes down to their national character. Once external momentum fades—like the industrial transfers from the US—they seem to lose the drive for technologi…

> I remember BYD actually had to design models specifically tailored to the Japanese market (k-car)—their preferences are honestly so bizarre. You say this in past tense, but BYD's kei car won't be released until later this month [1]. It remains to be seen how well it will sell. I think they are expected to sell maybe 5,000 units per year initially, but obviously they are looking to expand sales over time. And what's…

I think the point GP's trying to make is that Japanese market require everything to be specifically designed for it, despite that the opposite rarely being true. One related concept I've seen mentioned is "Japan takes executive summaries of things and follow its own (weird/bad) interpretation of it".

BYD so far is doing much worse in Japan compared to Tesla, despite them having standard lineup of an SUV, two sedans, and a compact. A part of the reason would be that there's no particular motivation for their customers to pick specifically a Chinese car, but it's also true that a lot of Kei cars are sold in Japan, and producing a ground-up Japan-specific product was the solution that BYD took, which, I suppose, seemed to be a bizarre decision to GP.

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

#162

Post by gus_massa »

ufocia wrote: post #140
Ratelman wrote: post #139

So this isn't groundbreaking results and the article itself is of questionable quality without sufficient detail as to why this is a newsworthy result. How is this the top rated article on hacker news? A more meaningful example would have been the paper that sets out a scalable and cost-effective route for closing the loop on LFP materials, while demonstrating that high-yield lithium recovery and environmental respon…

Agreed. For example, what does the color of lithium hydroxide used instead of sodium hydroxide have to do with anything? They are both white.

Yep, the part about the color is ridiculous. After reading that paragraph a few times my guess is:

The normal procces uses Sodium Hidroxide that destroy a lot of things but the result is a mix of crap, Sodium salts an Litium salts that are very difficult to separate because they have very similar chemical properties.

Usualy Sodium Hidroxide is cheaper, so in general it's a good idea. But they have plenty of Litium arround.

If you replace the Sodium Hidroxide in the procces with Litium Hidroxide, it should destroy almost everything too. But now the result isonly crap an Litium salt, so you can skip a big part of the separation procces.

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

#163

Post by lostlogin »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #119
legitster wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 batt…

As late as the early 80s and probably later there was a guy in the city I live near that had a battery recycling company where they did just that - melted the pitch to extract the cells from the battery "bucket", cut the old cells off and melted them down, cast new grids and put new lead oxide in, and sealed it all up again. My dad bought a recycled lorry battery off them in the late 70s, and I remember going to the…

There are a fair few risks. Electrical and chemical burns, electrocution, fire, the weights involved, poisoning, heavy metals. It’s hard to think of a risk category that doesn’t apply.

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

#164

Post by lostlogin »

qsera wrote: post #150
pacija wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Serb, I currently live in a dictatorship actively supported by everyone involved in EV boom. Those who want to profit from mining lithium in Serbia have determined my country should be a mining colony, and they do everything in their power, including financing corrupt murderous regime protested by hundreds of thoudands of Serbs for years, in order to poison our rivers and aral land and extract lithium. https://f…

>Polluted cities getting cleaner for some. Clean rivers and beautiful forests getting poisounous ore pits for others. Yes, that is how it goes. Right now all the "intellectuals" and "thought leaders" are in EV apologetic mode. This is a window of opportunity for the corporate to maximize bad stuff to maximize profits selling EV.

A depressing thread.

We replace the evil of oil with the same behaviour but in new places.

I wonder how long it takes for a country to recover from its oil industry?

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

#165

Post by lostlogin »

orwin wrote: post #124
worldsayshi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> places like India I had the impression that India is quickly turning rich enough to say no to things like this.

India is a lot like Russia in that its people and standards of living are very different from place to place. China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India, especially once you go in more remote areas. (this is not a diss on India, i think that make the country much more interesting)

> China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India

If rumour is to be believed, this isn’t a coincidence and had been done by the regime.

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

#166

Post by lostlogin »

iso1631 wrote: post #134
Danox wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources, and if you don’t recognize upfront that, be it the military, companies or government, you have to be prepared to clean up your mess, in short, factor in cleanup and the cost of using rare earths or any other item you can dig up on land or pump from the sea or land, but worldwide, mankind is still not quite there in terms of re…

> Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic Carrots?

Everything has a fatal dose. But I’m not sure the LF50 for carrots has been established yes.

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

#167

Post by gosub100 »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #119
legitster wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 batt…

As late as the early 80s and probably later there was a guy in the city I live near that had a battery recycling company where they did just that - melted the pitch to extract the cells from the battery "bucket", cut the old cells off and melted them down, cast new grids and put new lead oxide in, and sealed it all up again. My dad bought a recycled lorry battery off them in the late 70s, and I remember going to the…

There are people doing it today, in the US.

https://youtube.com/@batteryguyz7203

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

#168

Post by dv_dt »

Danox wrote: post #129
dtech wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "advantage" is that in contrast to heavy metals like lead lithium is a lot less toxic as far as we know. Not 0, but not in the same league.

Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources, and if you don’t recognize upfront that, be it the military, companies or government, you have to be prepared to clean up your mess, in short, factor in cleanup and the cost of using rare earths or any other item you can dig up on land or pump from the sea or land, but worldwide, mankind is still not quite there in terms of re…

but here again, shifting from fossil fuels usage lifecycle - which is literally extract to refine and burn is a much more polluting lifecycle than a 20 year extract, use, recycle lifecycle for lithium or solar or any renewable approach. And its an improvement in both intensity and sheer tonnage of material extracted.

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

#169

Post by mrob »

ufocia wrote: post #144
BaudouinVH wrote: post #67

The article is very, very light with details. The university or research center is not named. No scientist is named. No link. Nothing that tells "look, we're telling you real, solid, serious stuff." Here is another article with that details : https://www.techspot.com/news/112051-japan-finds-way-recover...

Still slop. This article appears to conflate battery recycling with lithium recovery, two distinct steps to achieve high lithium reuse.

Doesn't read like slop to me. The only sentence that could be argued to conflate the two is:

>A new law taking effect this year will require manufacturers and importers to collect and recycle small portable batteries from the likes of phones, vapes, and power tools.

But "recycle" doesn't necessarily mean closed-loop recycling (recycling into the same products). Lithium recovery is a type of open-loop recycling and the surrounding paragraphs talk about lithium recovery so this is a reasonable interpretation.

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

#170

Post by [deleted] »

neuroelectron wrote: post #95
BaudouinVH wrote: post #67

The article is very, very light with details. The university or research center is not named. No scientist is named. No link. Nothing that tells "look, we're telling you real, solid, serious stuff." Here is another article with that details : https://www.techspot.com/news/112051-japan-finds-way-recover...

Being able to quickly skim articles is definitely a skill that has paid in spades since the advent of AI slop.

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