
New way to recycle lithium-ion batteries - oedmarap
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-lithium-ion-battery-recycling-20180316-story.html
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jwilk
" _Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European
countries._ "

Here's an archived copy that works:

[https://archive.is/PaAIm](https://archive.is/PaAIm)

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lvs
Yes, something is wrong at Tronc, other than their name. I noticed if you make
the URL [https://](https://) manually, it works.

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jwilk
It doesn't work for me. I still get a redirect to:
[http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/latimes.com/](http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/latimes.com/)

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pasbesoin
Without detailed knowledge, I've been a bit puzzled by this. As far as I
understand, the inputs to manufacturing of the cells (as opposed to their
packaging) are all elements and oxides of elements and/or similar. Not complex
molecules that can be difficult to construct.

Given enough energy, and time to find optimal processes, I don't understand
why these cells aren't essentially fully recyclable.

In the meantime, if we can't do so or do so profitably, yet, segregate them
from the waste stream for the day when we can and/or economics makes this
profitable.

I guess this is more "planning" and consistency than most societies today are
capable of.

But, our existing processes don't "destroy" the lithium, nor the cobalt. It's
there, already mined, refined, and now used once. Waiting for recovery.

Perhaps we need some standards and regulations regarding packaging, both of
cells and cells within their devices, to help facilitate recovery. And that
could get involved, trying not to end up limiting technical and design
advances.

But you could say, whatever one ends up building, the battery components have
to be recoverable to X extent -- that must be a factor in your design,
whatever your form-factor.

And up to this point, a lot of consumer designs are packaging multiples of
more or less standard cell designs. So...

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lolc
I see three factors that together have prevented recycling:

1\. quickly raising demand (this means the recycling pool is small relative to
production)

2\. low cost of the mined source materials

3\. established processes

Oh I forgot number four the human factor: general shortsightedness.

As the supply of old cells grows relative to newly produced cells, the
incentives will change. Especially if we hit supply shortages that increase
prices.

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ricardobeat
Same article from Scientific American in February:
[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/a-new-way-
to...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/a-new-way-to-recycle-
batteries-uses-half-the-energy/)

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kwhitefoot
> metal found in finite supplies

It averages about 25 parts per million in the Earth's crust, a bit more common
than lithium at 20 ppm. Gold is 4 parts per billion yet no one seems to be
predicting the end of gold supplies.

i suspect that ordinary price signals will drive better utilization, newer
chemistries, political will to recycle more, etc.

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esturk
That wasn't what the article said. If you truncate sentences in both
directions to make a distorted point, you might as well stop. The rest of the
sentence reads:

> ... cobalt, a metal found in finite supplies and concentrated in one of the
> globe's more precarious countries.

Notice how it reads differently.

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kwhitefoot
It was a general point about how there are endless articles predicting that
there will not be enough of element X when that element is in fact not rare,
merely energetically costly to refine, and in fact currently so common as to
not drive effective recycling or conservation.

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Nasrudith
While good to have I wonder about the utility long term with changing battery
chemistries. At least cobalt has other uses in alloys even if it becomes
completely obsolete in batteries.

