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The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

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Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#81

Post by xxpor »

hanche wrote: post #70
xxpor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even full EVs have old school 12v lead acids in them because they still have a full 12v system to run ~everything in the car that aren't actual traction motors (for compatibility with the existing automotive supply chain if nothing else). There's a regulation at least in the US that says the HV system also has to be physically disconnected when the car isn't being used so if the 12v battery dies you're still stuck li…

I have owned no less than three Kia Soul EVs. The first two would succumb to a flat 12V battery, but the latest (a 2020 model) will connect the HV battery to charge the 12V battery if needed, even when the car is parked and switched off. You can see it in action, as a blue light on the dash will flash while this goes on.

Oh that's neat. I hope tesla adopts that, because one of the biggest issues has been the 12 v batteries dying quickly. I'm not sure if anyone's figured out the root cause, but IIRC people think that they abuse the battery in some way that an alternator wouldn't.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#82

Post by 0xffff2 »

tuatoru wrote: post #72
d33lio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-use != Recycling

That's right, it's better. The old mantra "reduce, re-use, recycle" is in that order because that's the order of "greenness". Recycling should be the last resort.

Re-use of a battery is fine, but it's a stop-gap. The battery will eventually reach a state of health where it isn't useful in any application anymore, so recycling is still necessary. The "re-use" step just delays that a bit.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#83

Post by Accujack »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #75
HPsquared wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Molten salt, breeder and Thorium reactors can achieve orders-of-magnitude improvements, and aren't exactly groundbreaking technology. Reprocessing as well. Several examples from decades ago, and new designs in the pipeline. The main problems are politics and lack of funding.

The Wikipedia page highlights that there's certainly discussion, doubt and controversy surrounding those technologies. The decisive factor of change I can see here is the unproven commercial viability of alternatives at the moment as Uranium is still cheap. Whether or not those alternatives become viable once Uranium prices increase isn't easily predicted. So, I remain highly skeptical towars claims that dismiss the…

Did you read the part about breeder reactors above?

You can create fuel for the SMRs via a centrally administered and controlled (to avoid nuclear proliferation) reactor, so no need to worry about uranium... in fact, it might make sense to avoid the ecological impact of uranium mining anyway.

SMRs are being developed that use other fuels, too, that are available in abundance, like Thorium:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030645491...

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#84

Post by Accujack »

djsumdog wrote: post #62
CaptArmchair wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A point few proponents of fission power tend to mention is that Uranium supplies are also finite. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium Unless there are major breakthroughs in nuclear technology which become commercially viable in the near future - that is, in this 21st century - nuclear power, as it stands, is running out of time, and it does so faster then most people assume.

and we've wasted so much of our uranium making bombs that can never be used as fuel. There is research in trying to use highly enriched uranium as a fuel source, but I doubt that will ever be a safe reality.

It's the other way around. Highly enriched uranium has been easy to use as a fuel source for decades. Using less enriched material has always been a problem, actually. CANDU (Canadian design) did a pretty good job making it work, though.

Nuclear weapons didn't use much uranium, they manufactured and processed plutonium.

By the way, a lot of nuclear fuel in the past few decades has been reprocessed material from weapons that were decommissioned. I believe the US even traded with the Russians for their spare plutonium.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#85

Post by Accujack »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #76
08-15 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uranium supplies are also finite So is the sun, and they will both last for roughly the same time, i.e. 5 billion years.[1] [1] http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

You just referred to a HTML page ... having a counter on the bottom which says: > The number of hits on this page since 1996 Feb 12 ... a HTTP Response Header > Last-Modified Sat, 27 Jan 2007 02:38:36 GMT Stating that these aren't "the latest insights" would be putting it mildly. My comment referred to commercial viability. It at this point in time, Uranium has only been extracted from seawater in a laboratory settin…

Uranium isn't necessary. A breeder reactor could manufacture plutonium, or a thorium fueled design could be used.

Nuclear power isn't constrained by fuel scarcity at all. If anything, we have too much fissionable material.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#86

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

AFAICT, used Tesla battery packs fetch a decent price on ebay etc. They're more valuable for reuse than they are for recycling. Reuse is better than recycling.

> Reuse is better than recycling. True and I agree, however batteries have a limited lifetime, and at the end of said lifetime, lithium batteries become dangerous. Does anyone risk putting a secondhand battery in their phones for example? Might be okay for old Nokia style batteries, but the integrated ones, not a chance. Another problem is that with EV battery packs, they're not really viable to be disassembled and r…

The Tesla LFP batteries aren't just million mile batteries, Jeff Dahn said there was no detectable degradation from cycling.

For those that don't know, LFP is only going to be in the short range M3 until more improvements in density (or better integration) hit mainstream.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#87

Post by Tade0 »

8note wrote: post #79
Tade0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor nitpick: li-ion batteries contain no rare-earths. The catalysts used in oil refining do on the other hand - specifically Lanthanum.

The motor being run off it likely has neodymium magnets in it though?

First Teslas had an AC induction motor - no rare earths here as well, so it's actually possible to avoid them almost entirely.

That is, with the exception of control hardware - but you have the same in regular cars - around a pound of rare earths on average.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#88

Post by Forbo »

sandworm101 wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's previous CTO and Co-founder, JB Straubel (who spent 15 years at Tesla), left to found Redwood Materials [1] (which intends to scale up battery recycling processes). Fortum, a Finnish clean energy firm (correction provided by @Sharlin), has reached an 80% recycling rate as of 2019 [2]. It's always going to be cheaper to pour end of life cells into a remanufacturing process than to extract raw lithium from brin…

>> Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop SOME lithium batteries are recyclable, but ALL oldschool lead acid batteries are recyclable. For installations where weight/size are secondary concerns, old fashioned wet car batteries are more "green" than anything involving lithium. A used lead-acid battery is not a liability. It is a useful and profitable product that can be easily turned into other useful pr…

> A used lead-acid battery is not a liability.

Can't they leak hydrogen, potentially causing an explosion? I admit my only knowledge of this comes from perusing the Wikipedia page on them and an episode of Mr. Robot.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#89

Post by WhompingWindows »

artvark11 wrote: post #4

The lie that electric vehicles are better for the environment than internal combustion needs to stop. Lithium batteries will pollute the world. We will exploit impoverished counties and extract their lithium reserves while destroying their environments. We will not clean up when we finish. Lithium batteries will pollute our water supplies here at home when they aren't properly disposed. This is a giant environmental…

You can list out the harms of lithium ion production, which I agree with, but they are vastly dwarfed by ICE harms. ICE warms the entire planet and changes the climate, which is a much more vast problem than the also problematic issues of resource extraction for lithium ion or any other resource, including fossil fuel too by the way.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#90

Post by sitharus »

Forbo wrote: post #88
sandworm101 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop SOME lithium batteries are recyclable, but ALL oldschool lead acid batteries are recyclable. For installations where weight/size are secondary concerns, old fashioned wet car batteries are more "green" than anything involving lithium. A used lead-acid battery is not a liability. It is a useful and profitable product that can be easily turned into other useful pr…

> A used lead-acid battery is not a liability. Can't they leak hydrogen, potentially causing an explosion? I admit my only knowledge of this comes from perusing the Wikipedia page on them and an episode of Mr. Robot.

Only during charging. The bigger problem is the release of lead dust during the recycling process.
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