11 ms·

The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

110 points by n0pe_p0pe 6y ago

bryanlarsen 6y ago
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.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  For sure, but 5? 10? years from now those re-used batteries will probably not be usable at all, right?
  - goodcanadian 6y ago
    It depends. What kills the batteries is fast charging or discharging and to an extent, leaving them sitting around fully charged or discharged. If the batteries are retired to do grid storage (or home storage), I would expect the charge and discharge rates to be fairly sedate, and charge levels to be managed so as not to have the battery level too low or too high for very long. I can easily imagine the batteries lasting a long time under such conditions.
    - minikites 6y ago
      Space and weight are also much less of a concern. A stationary infrastructure battery with less than half its original capacity wouldn't be unusable the way it would be for a car.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Industrial carbon capture coal electricity production is substantially more expensive than renewables or natgas at this point, no reason to turn to it. e: hm, somehow my comment switched chains?
      - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
        Natgas will need CCS too. It plays well with renewables, in the role of peaker plants. So I think coal is dead but fracking is here to stay. Especially given that fracking also has a role in geothermal. It's an industrial capability that we'll want to keep.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    And at that point it'll cheaper to "mine" those batteries for their cobalt, nickel and lithium than it will be to pull it out of the ground. At that point recycling will be viable because they'll have a large amount of fairly homogeneous batteries to recycle rather than the random hodge-podge of tiny batteries they have to deal with now.
- mfer 6y ago
  Tesla isn't the only EV manufacturer. Others are ramping up production. Are their used batteries in such high demand? Then there is the practical question. You have a 5 year old EV that doesn't get enough miles for your use any longer. So, you have someone swap out the batteries for new ones. Do the people who swap out the batteries actually resell them for reuse or try to recycle them? If it's not easy or financially viable they will likely not do it. Just having technology isn't enough. It needs to be accessible to the people who will engage with it.
  - goodcanadian 6y ago
    Are their used batteries in such high demand? Yes! Used Nissan Leaf battery packs and individual cells sell for quite a bit.
  - jasoncartwright 6y ago
    When a battery deemed too inefficient for an EV then you can use it for static storage. Then you can recycle them when they are no good for that. BMW do this. https://insideevs.com/news/436066/bmw-group-ev-battery-recycling-rate-96/ https://insideevs.com/news/436066/bmw-group-ev-battery-recyc...
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  > 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 repaired (e.g. by replacing individual cells), they're built pretty solid and integrated. Not saying it's impossible, just that it's likely not viable, not to mention very dangerous work. I could be wrong though.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    > they're not really viable to be disassembled and repaired The fact that you can sell a dead EV battery pack for good money indicates that it is viable.
    - thomaslord 6y ago
      There are lots of 18650 "manufacturers" that actually just buy used batteries, re-wrap them, and sell them as new. I imagine that used Tesla battery packs may be used for this purpose pretty frequently. Unfortunately while this activity provides a great value for the players involved, the batteries are often passed off as new high-discharge cells to consumers who use them for vaporizers or flashlights. Using old spent cells for both of these use cases can be dangerous, but it's particularly worrying in vaporizers because the battery may fail catastrophically inches from the consumer's face.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    > Another problem is that with EV battery packs, Clearly addressed in TFA.
  - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
    No one is putting cylindrical cells on phones. These go to stationary storage. Also some people test and save each cell separately and put them in new packs.
  - 6y ago
artvark11 6y ago
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 scam promoted to make us feel good about "saving" the earth. I don't believe for a second that corporate democrats care about the environment. We need widespread renewable electricity generation first anyway. Otherwise our electric cars will be running on coal.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  Tesla EVs were marketed to the upper-middle class as a status symbol based on cutting-edge looks and performance, and to merely 'signal' environmental consciousness. Most people I know who aspire to own one work in finance and consulting roles, and don't really care that much about the environment, they just want something cool. The poser environmentalism just comes along for the ride. Likewise, when people upgrade to the latest iPhone every generation, they aren't thinking about their recycling program, let alone the environmental cost of extraction of rare earth materials, or the workers at Foxconn. That Elon Musk didn't bother working on the waste part of the equation, doesn't surprise me.
- jrockway 6y ago
  What's your plan for moving around when our limited supply of fossil fuels are depleted?
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Not the OP but civilisation didn't start with the invention of the motor car. If you look at our general wellbeing it hasn't shifted one iota over the period that cars become pervasive.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      That’s a bold claim, especially in context of running out of transport fuels starting from where we are now. What date range are you using for the period over which cars became pervasive?
iSnow 6y ago
I wish the article mentioned the matrix materials for the electrolyte which AFAIK are pretty problematic poly-fluorated organic compounds. I wonder whether the pyrolysis is turning them into really nasty chemical waste.
d33lio 6y ago
Tesla seems to have used the same dirty trick used by oil companies to convince the public that plastics were largely "recyclable" by conflating economically productive (for Tesla) re-use of decommissioned batteries from Teslas and "recycling" of actual cells. I support the work of Elon Musk, obviously many here do not and call him a fraud, however I do take issue with how he uses this line to call the battery tech Tesla uses "renewable".
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  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 brine ponds, so it makes economic sense to do the R&D to do so. It's also going to be cheaper to reuse existing, functioning cell modules (such as folks harvesting cell packs from Teslas and other EVs for stationary storage) than to landfill or recycle those materials. Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop, although there is work required to make them 100% recyclable. [1] https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ [2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/innovation-boosts-lithium-ion-battery-recycling-rate-to-over-80 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/innovation-boosts-lit...
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    > Fortum, a Finnish startup Uhuh, Fortum[1] is not exactly a startup. It is a state-owned corporation with annual revenue of about 5 billion and one of the largest players in the Nordic energy sector. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortum
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - sandworm101 6y ago

110 points by n0pe_p0pe 6y ago

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.

gameswithgo 6y ago
For sure, but 5? 10? years from now those re-used batteries will probably not be usable at all, right?
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  It depends. What kills the batteries is fast charging or discharging and to an extent, leaving them sitting around fully charged or discharged. If the batteries are retired to do grid storage (or home storage), I would expect the charge and discharge rates to be fairly sedate, and charge levels to be managed so as not to have the battery level too low or too high for very long. I can easily imagine the batteries lasting a long time under such conditions.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Space and weight are also much less of a concern. A stationary infrastructure battery with less than half its original capacity wouldn't be unusable the way it would be for a car.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Industrial carbon capture coal electricity production is substantially more expensive than renewables or natgas at this point, no reason to turn to it. e: hm, somehow my comment switched chains?
    - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
      Natgas will need CCS too. It plays well with renewables, in the role of peaker plants. So I think coal is dead but fracking is here to stay. Especially given that fracking also has a role in geothermal. It's an industrial capability that we'll want to keep.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  And at that point it'll cheaper to "mine" those batteries for their cobalt, nickel and lithium than it will be to pull it out of the ground. At that point recycling will be viable because they'll have a large amount of fairly homogeneous batteries to recycle rather than the random hodge-podge of tiny batteries they have to deal with now.
mfer 6y ago
Tesla isn't the only EV manufacturer. Others are ramping up production. Are their used batteries in such high demand? Then there is the practical question. You have a 5 year old EV that doesn't get enough miles for your use any longer. So, you have someone swap out the batteries for new ones. Do the people who swap out the batteries actually resell them for reuse or try to recycle them? If it's not easy or financially viable they will likely not do it. Just having technology isn't enough. It needs to be accessible to the people who will engage with it.
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  Are their used batteries in such high demand? Yes! Used Nissan Leaf battery packs and individual cells sell for quite a bit.
- jasoncartwright 6y ago
  When a battery deemed too inefficient for an EV then you can use it for static storage. Then you can recycle them when they are no good for that. BMW do this. https://insideevs.com/news/436066/bmw-group-ev-battery-recycling-rate-96/ https://insideevs.com/news/436066/bmw-group-ev-battery-recyc...
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
> 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 repaired (e.g. by replacing individual cells), they're built pretty solid and integrated. Not saying it's impossible, just that it's likely not viable, not to mention very dangerous work. I could be wrong though.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  > they're not really viable to be disassembled and repaired The fact that you can sell a dead EV battery pack for good money indicates that it is viable.
  - thomaslord 6y ago
    There are lots of 18650 "manufacturers" that actually just buy used batteries, re-wrap them, and sell them as new. I imagine that used Tesla battery packs may be used for this purpose pretty frequently. Unfortunately while this activity provides a great value for the players involved, the batteries are often passed off as new high-discharge cells to consumers who use them for vaporizers or flashlights. Using old spent cells for both of these use cases can be dangerous, but it's particularly worrying in vaporizers because the battery may fail catastrophically inches from the consumer's face.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  > Another problem is that with EV battery packs, Clearly addressed in TFA.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  No one is putting cylindrical cells on phones. These go to stationary storage. Also some people test and save each cell separately and put them in new packs.
- 6y ago

artvark11 6y ago

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 scam promoted to make us feel good about "saving" the earth. I don't believe for a second that corporate democrats care about the environment. We need widespread renewable electricity generation first anyway. Otherwise our electric cars will be running on coal.

h0l0cube 6y ago
Tesla EVs were marketed to the upper-middle class as a status symbol based on cutting-edge looks and performance, and to merely 'signal' environmental consciousness. Most people I know who aspire to own one work in finance and consulting roles, and don't really care that much about the environment, they just want something cool. The poser environmentalism just comes along for the ride. Likewise, when people upgrade to the latest iPhone every generation, they aren't thinking about their recycling program, let alone the environmental cost of extraction of rare earth materials, or the workers at Foxconn. That Elon Musk didn't bother working on the waste part of the equation, doesn't surprise me.
jrockway 6y ago
What's your plan for moving around when our limited supply of fossil fuels are depleted?
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Not the OP but civilisation didn't start with the invention of the motor car. If you look at our general wellbeing it hasn't shifted one iota over the period that cars become pervasive.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    That’s a bold claim, especially in context of running out of transport fuels starting from where we are now. What date range are you using for the period over which cars became pervasive?

iSnow 6y ago

I wish the article mentioned the matrix materials for the electrolyte which AFAIK are pretty problematic poly-fluorated organic compounds. I wonder whether the pyrolysis is turning them into really nasty chemical waste.

d33lio 6y ago

Tesla seems to have used the same dirty trick used by oil companies to convince the public that plastics were largely "recyclable" by conflating economically productive (for Tesla) re-use of decommissioned batteries from Teslas and "recycling" of actual cells. I support the work of Elon Musk, obviously many here do not and call him a fraud, however I do take issue with how he uses this line to call the battery tech Tesla uses "renewable".

toomuchtodo 6y ago
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 brine ponds, so it makes economic sense to do the R&D to do so. It's also going to be cheaper to reuse existing, functioning cell modules (such as folks harvesting cell packs from Teslas and other EVs for stationary storage) than to landfill or recycle those materials. Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop, although there is work required to make them 100% recyclable. [1] https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ [2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/innovation-boosts-lithium-ion-battery-recycling-rate-to-over-80 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/innovation-boosts-lit...
- Sharlin 6y ago
  > Fortum, a Finnish startup Uhuh, Fortum[1] is not exactly a startup. It is a state-owned corporation with annual revenue of about 5 billion and one of the largest players in the Nordic energy sector. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortum
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- sandworm101 6y ago