Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tech.supercarblondie.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 208 posts

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

#181

Post by catigula »

boutell wrote: post #153
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...

Thank you. Among other important points there: "That said, Japan isn't the only country pursuing lithium recovery. In the US, Redwood Materials – the recycling company founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel – says it's already recovering 95% of lithium from the equivalent of about 250,000 EVs per year." EV batteries are too large and valuable to wind up in landfills, although I'm sure it has happened somewhere. I do…

Classic

>racism

>racism, Japan

Type scenario.

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

#182

Post by officeplant »

It's going to be a strange day 8-10 years from now (my EV is 2.5 years old) when it comes time to try and get an aftermarket or OEM replacement battery for it, hopefully the larger one from a later model.

If recycling is set up properly the core charge is going to be enormous and make me question if its worth turning in the old battery or repurposing it as home electricity storage.

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

#183

Post by officeplant »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #58

The article seems to be very unspecific about what it is this company does that is so different. It also steps over the fact that there are already quite a few companies active in the US, EU, and China that are recycling batteries. Nor is the cited percentage that remarkable. That's ballpark what competitors are achieving as well. Probably a bit more. 10% lithium is a lot of lithium to not recover. Most natural depos…

>lack of batteries that need recycling

This is why I would like to see regulation on disposable lithium powered devices. Some other countries are enforcing it finally with all the disposable vapes littering our environments. Easiest method is similar handling to lead acid batteries requiring you to return a battery to buy one, or pay a core charge. It could even encourage people to pick up vapes off the ground so they can go buy one without the charge.

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

mrob wrote: post #169
ufocia wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by larodi »

setopt wrote: post #126
larodi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

Because you not even trying

supercarblondie.com

Published article bout supposed breakthrough battery recovery with zero refs to actual sources as the other commenter noted.

So likely the article is LLM reprint of something else or aggregation. Thus blondie slop.

But even so it tops like crazy because … well because, in all fair evidence, HN folk seems to care zero about sources, or less so about authorship when is/gets excited about random shit, but in the same time cares badly whether sacred code in Linux kernel was AI written.

Now downvote more.

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

#186

Post by roarkeful »

chihuahua wrote: post #138
googletop wrote: post #55

Mercedes opened a battery recycling plant in 2024, claiming a recycling rate of 96%, of the whole battery. So not sure how much of a breakthrough this japanese tech is https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/recycling-facto...

Probably an instance of the "Thing :-| Thing in Japan 8-)" meme.

To be fair, the Japanese factory is probably cuter.

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

#187

Post by jabl »

akssri wrote: post #177
numpad0 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how "Japan is betting on Hydrogen" meme survived this long. Toyota sold something like up to 20k total of passenger FCEV in past 10-20 years. That's less than a quarter worth in Prius sales numbers. It always has been a joke and a futurism porn. Is it coming from some internal Slack channel at Tesla or something? Whoever spreading it don't know what they're talking about.

Between METI, Toyota & others, they appear to have spent > $40B over multiple decades. It's a bit silly to downplay their investment based on the sales numbers of Toyota Mirai.

So we should ignore the Mirai sales numbers and conclude, uh, what, that the entire $40B investment is wasted and hasn't produced anything of value?

Or if we want to be charitable, surely the $40B has resulted in some advancement of the scientific knowledge. From which we can conclude that the "hydrogen economy" remains a pipe dream despite all the investment so far?

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

#189

Post by qsera »

cogman10 wrote: post #172
qsera wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>countries where enforcement is lax As an Indian this is exactly one of the reasons why I am afraid of EV boom. All of that bad stuff, which we are mostly unfamiliar with (in terms of how to handle it properly, because battery tech is always changing) is going to dumped in places like India. And would silently sustain the bad effects for many decades or even more, until it (the bad stuff) somehow reaches some develop…

Well let me ease some of your fears. Lithium batteries are less toxic than most other battery chemistries (including lead acid batteries). The major toxic portion of lithium batteries comes in the form of production, but not the actual materials involved in the battery. The battery tech also isn't changing as much as you might think. Don't get me wrong, it is getting better, but a lot of that isn't really by changing…

You paint a happy path. But the devil is in the details that often come to light only much later.

Sure, we could end up with a tech that have really no pollution potential. But there is much higher chance that we would end-up with something bad, that would go into production with a promise of "proper handling and re-cycling", but would never end up getting done...

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

#190

Post by cogman10 »

qsera wrote: post #189
cogman10 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let me ease some of your fears. Lithium batteries are less toxic than most other battery chemistries (including lead acid batteries). The major toxic portion of lithium batteries comes in the form of production, but not the actual materials involved in the battery. The battery tech also isn't changing as much as you might think. Don't get me wrong, it is getting better, but a lot of that isn't really by changing…

You paint a happy path. But the devil is in the details that often come to light only much later. Sure, we could end up with a tech that have really no pollution potential. But there is much higher chance that we would end-up with something bad, that would go into production with a promise of "proper handling and re-cycling", but would never end up getting done...

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was no pollution potential or problems.

My point was primarily that the chemicals within the lithium ion batteries are themselves pretty common on the surface and not forever poisons like lead.

My other point was that the major issue around these was primarily the chemicals used to purify and refine. Those can be nasty especially if not treated well.

But all things considered, the risks and potential damage from mishandling the recycling and production of LiPos is a lot lower than the risks that surround things like recycling lead acid batteries.

Post reply on HN