4 ms·

A post-apocalyptic backyard garage could conceivably recycle a lead-acid battery, they're pretty simple.

dragontamer 4y ago
And in a Mad-Max future (lots of cars around, but not enough fuel), there will be plenty of Lead Acid batteries laying around to recycle. I do consider it effectively an apocalyptic kind of battery design. It was invented in the 1800s, its chemistry is incredibly simple (Sulfuric Acid + Lead), and is very well studied.
kragen 4y ago
As it happens, I've spent a lot of time over the last week talking to a guy in Romania who's trying to fix a sulfated lead-acid battery in his backyard garage. (I don't know if you've been to Romania, but the apocalypse happened 40 years ago there, so his available resources are kind of limited.) I think he's going to succeed, and may eventually progress to being able to recycle the lead into a new battery, but it's not going to be a weekend learning process or even a week-long one. He reports that it's a "very complex electrochemical device". The USPTO (?) has assigned the code H01M10/06 to lead-acid battery patents. https://patents.google.com/?q=(H01M10%2f06)&oq=(H01M10%2f06) https://patents.google.com/?q=(H01M10%2f06)&oq=(H01M10%2f06) finds 44'593 patents in this category. You don't need any of them to get a working lead-acid battery, but a significant subset of them are going to be helpful. Some are order-of-magnitude improvements.
- grugagag 4y ago
  What kind of apocalypse happened in Romania 40 years ago?
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    I presume he's talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union, which caused a huge amount of upheaval in that area. But I'm a poor student of modern history. Just throwing out a guess for now.
    - grugagag 4y ago
      That sounds like the opposite of an apocalypse
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        Eventually it was good for Romania but IIRC, the initial collapse was very bad for the locals. But again, I'd say that Eastern European modern history is my weakest subject by far. I probably should avoid talking about this subject lol.
    - kragen 4y ago
      Right, but I got the time interval wrong; it was only 30 years ago.

And in a Mad-Max future (lots of cars around, but not enough fuel), there will be plenty of Lead Acid batteries laying around to recycle. I do consider it effectively an apocalyptic kind of battery design. It was invented in the 1800s, its chemistry is incredibly simple (Sulfuric Acid + Lead), and is very well studied.

kragen 4y ago

As it happens, I've spent a lot of time over the last week talking to a guy in Romania who's trying to fix a sulfated lead-acid battery in his backyard garage. (I don't know if you've been to Romania, but the apocalypse happened 40 years ago there, so his available resources are kind of limited.) I think he's going to succeed, and may eventually progress to being able to recycle the lead into a new battery, but it's not going to be a weekend learning process or even a week-long one. He reports that it's a "very complex electrochemical device". The USPTO (?) has assigned the code H01M10/06 to lead-acid battery patents. https://patents.google.com/?q=(H01M10%2f06)&oq=(H01M10%2f06) https://patents.google.com/?q=(H01M10%2f06)&oq=(H01M10%2f06) finds 44'593 patents in this category. You don't need any of them to get a working lead-acid battery, but a significant subset of them are going to be helpful. Some are order-of-magnitude improvements.

grugagag 4y ago
What kind of apocalypse happened in Romania 40 years ago?
- dragontamer 4y ago
  I presume he's talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union, which caused a huge amount of upheaval in that area. But I'm a poor student of modern history. Just throwing out a guess for now.
  - grugagag 4y ago
    That sounds like the opposite of an apocalypse
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      Eventually it was good for Romania but IIRC, the initial collapse was very bad for the locals. But again, I'd say that Eastern European modern history is my weakest subject by far. I probably should avoid talking about this subject lol.
  - kragen 4y ago
    Right, but I got the time interval wrong; it was only 30 years ago.