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Lithium battery recycling of high efficiency requres a known feed of one type of battery, Most scrap batteries with a mixture of assorted chemistry laptop batte

Lithium battery recycling of high efficiency requres a known feed of one type of battery, Most scrap batteries with a mixture of assorted chemistry laptop batteries in small quantities can not optimize. Big players sort all their cells into knows metals/chemistry etc. for best recovery Tesla and other car makers will present a known consistent feed of old batteries and will be able to reclaim 95%++ of the battery metal content. The recycle field is getting crowded, but car makers have the high card as they can make their own recycling system in house. I bet Panasonic and LG have recycling - they will not leave that $$ on the table.

londons_explore 5y ago
By grinding up a wide enough variety of batteries you can get a pretty consistent mix. You then smelt it to metal as if it were ore. The waste gasses are the most expensive to treat properly. Sure, some catch fire, but most smelters are kinda fireproof already...
- aurizon 5y ago
  You can grind and smelt, risky as it is unless nitrogen blanketed? however this presents you with a hard to resolve mixture - usually the cheapest components are sacrificed for the Ni, Co and Li = even then it is a nuisance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkhXAP1EQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkhXAP1EQE
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    Interesting video, the guy talks about "hydro metallurgical processing batteries" but I wonder how much these processes (grind up in a vacuum, boil off/condense electrolytes, separate out plastics/etc and ground into black mask, acid bath of black mask and separate out into NiSO4, CoSO4, Li2SO4, etc) cost compared to typical mining operations?
    - aurizon 5y ago
      Hydrometallurgical processes are water based processes where you react the digested battery liquid with other liquids to get a react product that can be dealt with by filtering. It is a complex, often proprietary process, changing Ph etc, and while patented it still has a lot of black art. The source rock ores, pegmatitees, of Li are low grade with many other mineral species.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite Like a bag of nuts and bolts
      - cinquemb 5y ago
        > It is a complex, often proprietary process, changing Ph etc, and while patented it still has a lot of black art. Yeah that's what I figured, but doesn't really tell me about the costs vs mining (which will be hard to tell from the outside because of the above) :/
        aurizon 5y ago
        There are thousands of pegmatite deposits, with a mixed bag of nuts (associated minerals), each one needs to ba assessed as to extractable grade, the size of the deposit, the location, the environment etc. You do not get a pure Li ore body - it burns in air = you get a deposit of 2-3% Li with a mixed..... So lithium carbonate is worth about $15 per kilogram of the hydrated carbonate. LiCO3.2H2O = how it is used industrially with further processing. This can be followed here. https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/mining/publications/lithium.html https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/mining/publications/lit... https://www.fastmarkets.com/commodities/industrial-minerals/lithium-price-spotlight https://www.fastmarkets.com/commodities/industrial-minerals/...
        cinquemb 5y ago
        Thanks, the second link looks very helpful and gave me further ideas on how to try to work backwards to get an idea of the recycling processing costs: find spot prices of raw/intermediates that come from the process produced by companies with the black box recycling processes while trying to find those companies volume sold/processed over time (ideally they would process more when the underlying market is more expensive).
wcunning 5y ago
Also worth noting is that the entire automotive industry has a complete system for capturing functional enough used parts -- the core charge when buying a new part. Even shade tree mechanics feed into recycling those things to be bored out, sleeved and resold to a new person. I would expect nothing less of something with such high intrinsic material value.

londons_explore 5y ago

By grinding up a wide enough variety of batteries you can get a pretty consistent mix. You then smelt it to metal as if it were ore. The waste gasses are the most expensive to treat properly. Sure, some catch fire, but most smelters are kinda fireproof already...

aurizon 5y ago
You can grind and smelt, risky as it is unless nitrogen blanketed? however this presents you with a hard to resolve mixture - usually the cheapest components are sacrificed for the Ni, Co and Li = even then it is a nuisance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkhXAP1EQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkhXAP1EQE
- cinquemb 5y ago
  Interesting video, the guy talks about "hydro metallurgical processing batteries" but I wonder how much these processes (grind up in a vacuum, boil off/condense electrolytes, separate out plastics/etc and ground into black mask, acid bath of black mask and separate out into NiSO4, CoSO4, Li2SO4, etc) cost compared to typical mining operations?
  - aurizon 5y ago
    Hydrometallurgical processes are water based processes where you react the digested battery liquid with other liquids to get a react product that can be dealt with by filtering. It is a complex, often proprietary process, changing Ph etc, and while patented it still has a lot of black art. The source rock ores, pegmatitees, of Li are low grade with many other mineral species.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite Like a bag of nuts and bolts
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      > It is a complex, often proprietary process, changing Ph etc, and while patented it still has a lot of black art. Yeah that's what I figured, but doesn't really tell me about the costs vs mining (which will be hard to tell from the outside because of the above) :/
      - aurizon 5y ago
        There are thousands of pegmatite deposits, with a mixed bag of nuts (associated minerals), each one needs to ba assessed as to extractable grade, the size of the deposit, the location, the environment etc. You do not get a pure Li ore body - it burns in air = you get a deposit of 2-3% Li with a mixed..... So lithium carbonate is worth about $15 per kilogram of the hydrated carbonate. LiCO3.2H2O = how it is used industrially with further processing. This can be followed here. https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/mining/publications/lithium.html https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/industries/mining/publications/lit... https://www.fastmarkets.com/commodities/industrial-minerals/lithium-price-spotlight https://www.fastmarkets.com/commodities/industrial-minerals/...
        cinquemb 5y ago
        Thanks, the second link looks very helpful and gave me further ideas on how to try to work backwards to get an idea of the recycling processing costs: find spot prices of raw/intermediates that come from the process produced by companies with the black box recycling processes while trying to find those companies volume sold/processed over time (ideally they would process more when the underlying market is more expensive).

wcunning 5y ago

Also worth noting is that the entire automotive industry has a complete system for capturing functional enough used parts -- the core charge when buying a new part. Even shade tree mechanics feed into recycling those things to be bored out, sleeved and resold to a new person. I would expect nothing less of something with such high intrinsic material value.