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> nothing usable on scale There are many battery recyclers in China that grind up lithium ion batteries all day every day and recover the metals.

• slow_typist 4y ago
  Even if you can do it on scale and with a very high recovery rate of 90%, after 7 cycles half of the lithium is gone. Given the massive environmental effects of the mining and the relatively scarce reserves we need to allocate the metal very carefully. It should not be used to maintain a broken business model IMO.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    Where does that 90% figure come from? The state of the art appears to be 99%.
    • slow_typist 4y ago
      99% in a lab, if you are very good. 90% IRL (on industrial scale) is my educated guess given that you have losses in the whole reduction network and diminishing returns in the extraction process.