Are you talking about Li-ion batteries in general, or car batteries?
I’m switching between the two depending on context. Apologies if that’s confusing. But a car battery is just thousands of the smaller, regular Li-ion batteries (18650 cells were famously used for large numbers of Tesla cars, and thsese 18650 are the same Li-ion cells used in laptops and other smaller machines). But in any case, the chemical process is 100% identical in whatever form factor the battery is. Big or small. So frankly, they’re one-and-the-same. Any facility that can handle car batteries will be a facility that can handle the recycling of regular-ol 18650 cells.
Looking up some research: Pyrometallurgy (aka: set it all on fire and seperate the metals after they’ve liquified) has high levels of success with Cobalt for example. But its terrible for recovering Lithium.
Hydrometallurgy (aka: dip it inside of acid) gets rather specific as different acids have different properties. Li-Co works well with Hydrochloric Acid. But Mn (present in some Li-ion chemistries) is lost in HCl based recycling processes. Of course, Cobalt-free mixes (such as LiFePO4) need a different acid. Etc. etc. There’s solutions and processes available for specific Li-ion chemistries, but finding something that works on everything (and cheaply, effectively, and consistently so that the Recycling plant actually makes money) is basically unsolved.
Etc. etc. There’s significant problems that haven’t been solved yet in the battery recycling question. Despite the decades of experience we have with Li-ion… it turns out that Li-ion isn’t one chemistry. Its a family of different chemistries that has incrementally changed (and competing Li-ion formulas between different companies are further complicating the process).
Again: this isn’t like Steel where Steel is Steel everywhere (aka: Iron + Carbon) and chemically similar. Li-Ion has too many different chemistries, too much competition, and too much change from year-to-year for recycling to have taken off. Even today we’re seeing a switch from Li-Co chemistries into LiFePO4 chemistries, who knows what the future will bring? Its not worth it to build million-dollar plants to recycle batteries (aka: Obtain a few penny’s worth of Li or Co) when we can’t even settle upon a set chemistry or chemical composition.
I have read that recycling is feasible and realistic but did not bother to check. Can you point to the research that says it is hard and that the batreries will serve no future use as is?
The theories exist. There’s a chemical formula for everything.
The issue is doing it at scale, at low cost, at good enough recovery, at good enough consistencies, to make money and actually be worthy of investor $$$$.
Oh right, and here come Sodium and Silicon batteries. Weeeeee! Isn’t this fun? Back to square 1 and researching the new sets of acids needed to handle THOSE chemistries…
With that explanation I am still not clear whether the statistic on percentage of recycled batteries was car batteries, the battery industry as a whole, li-ion batteries, rechargeable batteries, … I am honestly interested in which statistics you are referring to. Especially the evolution of recycling of car batteries and the regions where recycling and collection occurs.
It seems you are adding uncertainty and doubt on the topic of battery recycling which I’m not sure is grounded. We are well past the point in our environment where we can live our current lifestyle in the way we live it today. We have to adapt to a different lifestyle and make strategic bets. It seems clear that we should stop pumping up oil and electric cars may help there. I’m looking for research that indicates that current car batteries are waiting in stockpiles to be recycled but no plants exist to recycle them.
As far as I can tell, there are not even enough bad battery packs around to suit the diy hackers to reuse them for home energy storage and with some luck your research points me to where I can find them.
I can grab any Li-ion chemistry I want from Digikey and use it for experiments at home.
I’m actually a hobby electrical engineer and moderator of /c/ece here and like to discuss electrical engineering.
Batteries are more of a chemical engineering thing, but experiments are conducted with electrical inventions (opamps, microcontrollers, pcbs).
In any case, Digikey.com has plenty of batteries. But used batteries are risky, especially with how explosive Li-ion is.
IMO, Hobbyists shouldn’t be experimenting with Li-ion (or unprotected Li-ion) without substantial fire safety measures. It’s a well known explosive risk in our field.
But if you really want to experiment, buy a fire extinguisher and the old ‘Bucket of Sand’ trick. Keep watch over the batteries during your experiments, keep flammable objects away, leave the battery test inside the bucket of sand and keep the fire extinguisher closeby.
You don’t have to do any of that to repurpose the batteries.
If the car is junked due to a wreck or other failure unrelated to the battery, grab the cells out if it and use them for something else. Eventually, the car body and the battery will be worth more as separate components, the car body will be recycled for the steel and aluminum, and the battery will be repurposed. It’s not complicated.
You know that each charge/discharge cycle irreversibly destroys the chemistry of Li-ion right? Li-ion as a technology wears out every time you recharge.
The chemical cell is a replacable part that must be regularly manufactured. Its near worthless after ~3000 cycles or so given today’s chemical compositions. Hopefully future improvements to recycling, cycles, durability, etc. etc. can make this number better. But the ~3000ish cycle limit is innate to today’s chemistries.
The exact number depends on temperature, charging characteristics (faster charge causes more wear-and-tear internally, slower-charge is better but slower/less convenient), and a myriad of factors. These are things that ultimately are thrown away as they become useless / worn out. The only way to break this cycle is to grind up the battery, dissolve the useful chemicals into acid, split out the metals into purified parts, and then rebuild the battery from scratch.
If a car gets into an accident and its cells are still within their usable lifetime, maybe you can repurpose the batteries. But its not clear how you’re supposed to track the durability / wear-out factor of those cells. Recycling them entirely back into fresh and purified chemical compounds for greatest consistency would be the best solution (as is done currently for Lead-acid batteries at 99%+ recycling rates). The issue is that Li-ion chemistries for recycling haven’t been fully figured out from a profitability perspective yet, so no such large scale plants exist.
Its near worthless after ~3000 cycles or so given today’s chemical compositions
That’s not true. It typically takes that many cycles to get down to 80% of the original capacity, which is not “near worthless”. Packs at this capacity can be used for a long time in applications such as fixed solar batteries, as I mentioned in my original response to you.
Your link shows experimental data where NCA type Li-ion wears out in as little as 250 cycles.
As I stated before: the exact amount varies by temperature, manufacturing variance, chemistry, charge rate and other factors. One number cannot represent all cells. But I posit that my 3000 cycle estimate is above and beyond the experimental data in your link.
I was steelmanning the argument and your link proves it.
Posting for anyonee else who follows this thread, he wasn’t capable of understanding the research.
Figure 1 shows the remaining capacity for several samples of LFP chemistry batteries after thousands of cycles. LFP is the most commonly used battery chemistry in electric cars right now. The data presented showed that almost all of the samples had >80% usable capacity after 3000 cycles.
Typical use of an electric car would require 1-2 charges per week. At 2 charges per week, 1500 charges is over 14 years of usable lifetime before the capacity of the battery degrades to 80%.
And as I said before, there are lots of good uses for battery packs at 80% degradation.
I’m switching between the two depending on context. Apologies if that’s confusing. But a car battery is just thousands of the smaller, regular Li-ion batteries (18650 cells were famously used for large numbers of Tesla cars, and thsese 18650 are the same Li-ion cells used in laptops and other smaller machines). But in any case, the chemical process is 100% identical in whatever form factor the battery is. Big or small. So frankly, they’re one-and-the-same. Any facility that can handle car batteries will be a facility that can handle the recycling of regular-ol 18650 cells.
Looking up some research: Pyrometallurgy (aka: set it all on fire and seperate the metals after they’ve liquified) has high levels of success with Cobalt for example. But its terrible for recovering Lithium.
Hydrometallurgy (aka: dip it inside of acid) gets rather specific as different acids have different properties. Li-Co works well with Hydrochloric Acid. But Mn (present in some Li-ion chemistries) is lost in HCl based recycling processes. Of course, Cobalt-free mixes (such as LiFePO4) need a different acid. Etc. etc. There’s solutions and processes available for specific Li-ion chemistries, but finding something that works on everything (and cheaply, effectively, and consistently so that the Recycling plant actually makes money) is basically unsolved.
Etc. etc. There’s significant problems that haven’t been solved yet in the battery recycling question. Despite the decades of experience we have with Li-ion… it turns out that Li-ion isn’t one chemistry. Its a family of different chemistries that has incrementally changed (and competing Li-ion formulas between different companies are further complicating the process).
Again: this isn’t like Steel where Steel is Steel everywhere (aka: Iron + Carbon) and chemically similar. Li-Ion has too many different chemistries, too much competition, and too much change from year-to-year for recycling to have taken off. Even today we’re seeing a switch from Li-Co chemistries into LiFePO4 chemistries, who knows what the future will bring? Its not worth it to build million-dollar plants to recycle batteries (aka: Obtain a few penny’s worth of Li or Co) when we can’t even settle upon a set chemistry or chemical composition.
The theories exist. There’s a chemical formula for everything.
The issue is doing it at scale, at low cost, at good enough recovery, at good enough consistencies, to make money and actually be worthy of investor $$$$.
Oh right, and here come Sodium and Silicon batteries. Weeeeee! Isn’t this fun? Back to square 1 and researching the new sets of acids needed to handle THOSE chemistries…
With that explanation I am still not clear whether the statistic on percentage of recycled batteries was car batteries, the battery industry as a whole, li-ion batteries, rechargeable batteries, … I am honestly interested in which statistics you are referring to. Especially the evolution of recycling of car batteries and the regions where recycling and collection occurs.
It seems you are adding uncertainty and doubt on the topic of battery recycling which I’m not sure is grounded. We are well past the point in our environment where we can live our current lifestyle in the way we live it today. We have to adapt to a different lifestyle and make strategic bets. It seems clear that we should stop pumping up oil and electric cars may help there. I’m looking for research that indicates that current car batteries are waiting in stockpiles to be recycled but no plants exist to recycle them.
As far as I can tell, there are not even enough bad battery packs around to suit the diy hackers to reuse them for home energy storage and with some luck your research points me to where I can find them.
I can grab any Li-ion chemistry I want from Digikey and use it for experiments at home.
I’m actually a hobby electrical engineer and moderator of /c/ece here and like to discuss electrical engineering.
Batteries are more of a chemical engineering thing, but experiments are conducted with electrical inventions (opamps, microcontrollers, pcbs).
In any case, Digikey.com has plenty of batteries. But used batteries are risky, especially with how explosive Li-ion is.
IMO, Hobbyists shouldn’t be experimenting with Li-ion (or unprotected Li-ion) without substantial fire safety measures. It’s a well known explosive risk in our field.
But if you really want to experiment, buy a fire extinguisher and the old ‘Bucket of Sand’ trick. Keep watch over the batteries during your experiments, keep flammable objects away, leave the battery test inside the bucket of sand and keep the fire extinguisher closeby.
You don’t have to do any of that to repurpose the batteries.
If the car is junked due to a wreck or other failure unrelated to the battery, grab the cells out if it and use them for something else. Eventually, the car body and the battery will be worth more as separate components, the car body will be recycled for the steel and aluminum, and the battery will be repurposed. It’s not complicated.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-021-00954-3
You know that each charge/discharge cycle irreversibly destroys the chemistry of Li-ion right? Li-ion as a technology wears out every time you recharge.
The chemical cell is a replacable part that must be regularly manufactured. Its near worthless after ~3000 cycles or so given today’s chemical compositions. Hopefully future improvements to recycling, cycles, durability, etc. etc. can make this number better. But the ~3000ish cycle limit is innate to today’s chemistries.
The exact number depends on temperature, charging characteristics (faster charge causes more wear-and-tear internally, slower-charge is better but slower/less convenient), and a myriad of factors. These are things that ultimately are thrown away as they become useless / worn out. The only way to break this cycle is to grind up the battery, dissolve the useful chemicals into acid, split out the metals into purified parts, and then rebuild the battery from scratch.
If a car gets into an accident and its cells are still within their usable lifetime, maybe you can repurpose the batteries. But its not clear how you’re supposed to track the durability / wear-out factor of those cells. Recycling them entirely back into fresh and purified chemical compounds for greatest consistency would be the best solution (as is done currently for Lead-acid batteries at 99%+ recycling rates). The issue is that Li-ion chemistries for recycling haven’t been fully figured out from a profitability perspective yet, so no such large scale plants exist.
That’s not true. It typically takes that many cycles to get down to 80% of the original capacity, which is not “near worthless”. Packs at this capacity can be used for a long time in applications such as fixed solar batteries, as I mentioned in my original response to you.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abae37
I will not be responding to you, you seem to be trolling.
Your link shows experimental data where NCA type Li-ion wears out in as little as 250 cycles.
As I stated before: the exact amount varies by temperature, manufacturing variance, chemistry, charge rate and other factors. One number cannot represent all cells. But I posit that my 3000 cycle estimate is above and beyond the experimental data in your link.
I was steelmanning the argument and your link proves it.
Posting for anyonee else who follows this thread, he wasn’t capable of understanding the research.
Figure 1 shows the remaining capacity for several samples of LFP chemistry batteries after thousands of cycles. LFP is the most commonly used battery chemistry in electric cars right now. The data presented showed that almost all of the samples had >80% usable capacity after 3000 cycles.
Typical use of an electric car would require 1-2 charges per week. At 2 charges per week, 1500 charges is over 14 years of usable lifetime before the capacity of the battery degrades to 80%.
And as I said before, there are lots of good uses for battery packs at 80% degradation.