6 ms·

That's interesting. Can you expound on this?

by Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Can you expound on this? Which part?
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >turning metals and old batteries into battery-grade powder is more similar than one would expect.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I'm not really an expert, but one obvious thing is you need to take non-pure metals and purify them. Recyclable batteries fail when the chemicals instead chemically combine with something other what you intend them to, crystalize, or otherwise become not the pure metal you start with. That impure metal is not conceptually different from ore, and the same process to turn ore into battery material must be done. Note that ore is more complex as you need to remove a lot more non-battery stuff, while in a used battery what you want is still in fairly high concentration, just not in the form a battery needs.
    - samstave 4y ago
      As an ignoramous ; what is it about Lithium specificall that makes it special to batteries? Is is that it freely ejects electrons at a higher rate than other materials, given a certain catalyst?
      - sethhochberg 4y ago
        Generally yeah - it is both willing to give up and take back electrons pretty easily (so, discharging and charging) but in the modern era another really important factor is that it balances having these properties and also being very light relative to the amount of energy it can hold in a battery. Good for portable applications like cell phones, cars, etc.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - bluGill 4y ago
        That was covered in my college chemistry class, but I took it 25 years ago and don't really remember the details. Electro negativity comes to mind, but I might have the terms wrong. In any case the laws of chemistry apply.
      - Scoundreller 4y ago
        Lithium is at the top, so you get the most voltage per molecule. Then there’s other factors like discharge recharge, temperatures, all that, but lithium is basically the best if you can get the other factors to play nice too: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/electpot.html#c1 http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/electpot.h...
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Recycling batteries involves shredding them into black mass [1] and then extracting lithium carbonate from it. This is the same stuff lithium from mines and brine fields is processed into [2]. (Carbonate is processed into lithium hydroxide [3], the stuff we trade [4] and mix in batteries.) In summary, they all start with pulverized stuff from which lithium carbonate is extracted and turned into lithium hydroxide. The fact that it's batteries versus rock just changes the front end; nothing downstream could care less. [1] https://catalysts.basf.com/blog/lets-talk-recycling-what-is-black-mass https://catalysts.basf.com/blog/lets-talk-recycling-what-is-... [2] https://samcotech.com/what-is-lithium-extraction-and-how-does-it-work/ https://samcotech.com/what-is-lithium-extraction-and-how-doe... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydroxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydroxide [4] https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/metals/battery-metals/lithium-hydroxide-cif-cjk-fastmarkets.contractSpecs.html https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/metals/battery-metals/lithi...
    - dlkasajiewo 4y ago
      Nooooo! you can't use wikipedia as a source it's not reliable >:( jkjk. Thanks for sharing!
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      Hmmm so they don’t really disassemble the batteries. They just grind them all up and then use physical and chemical processes to filter the bits they want? I guess this makes sense at scale. I’m not sure what I was picturing.
      - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        Generally, all forms of recycling that reauire manual dis-assebly don't really work. Labour cost is too much. Broken and damaged items dont dissasemble. each itme is unique, that sort of thing. Thats why plastic recycling and electribics recycling doesn't work. Recycling of metals and glass succeedd because you can just grind and melt everything.
        Waterluvian 4y ago

That's interesting. Can you expound on this?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> Can you expound on this? Which part?

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>turning metals and old batteries into battery-grade powder is more similar than one would expect.
- bluGill 4y ago
  I'm not really an expert, but one obvious thing is you need to take non-pure metals and purify them. Recyclable batteries fail when the chemicals instead chemically combine with something other what you intend them to, crystalize, or otherwise become not the pure metal you start with. That impure metal is not conceptually different from ore, and the same process to turn ore into battery material must be done. Note that ore is more complex as you need to remove a lot more non-battery stuff, while in a used battery what you want is still in fairly high concentration, just not in the form a battery needs.
  - samstave 4y ago
    As an ignoramous ; what is it about Lithium specificall that makes it special to batteries? Is is that it freely ejects electrons at a higher rate than other materials, given a certain catalyst?
    - sethhochberg 4y ago
      Generally yeah - it is both willing to give up and take back electrons pretty easily (so, discharging and charging) but in the modern era another really important factor is that it balances having these properties and also being very light relative to the amount of energy it can hold in a battery. Good for portable applications like cell phones, cars, etc.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bluGill 4y ago
      That was covered in my college chemistry class, but I took it 25 years ago and don't really remember the details. Electro negativity comes to mind, but I might have the terms wrong. In any case the laws of chemistry apply.
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      Lithium is at the top, so you get the most voltage per molecule. Then there’s other factors like discharge recharge, temperatures, all that, but lithium is basically the best if you can get the other factors to play nice too: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/electpot.html#c1 http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/electpot.h...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Recycling batteries involves shredding them into black mass [1] and then extracting lithium carbonate from it. This is the same stuff lithium from mines and brine fields is processed into [2]. (Carbonate is processed into lithium hydroxide [3], the stuff we trade [4] and mix in batteries.) In summary, they all start with pulverized stuff from which lithium carbonate is extracted and turned into lithium hydroxide. The fact that it's batteries versus rock just changes the front end; nothing downstream could care less. [1] https://catalysts.basf.com/blog/lets-talk-recycling-what-is-black-mass https://catalysts.basf.com/blog/lets-talk-recycling-what-is-... [2] https://samcotech.com/what-is-lithium-extraction-and-how-does-it-work/ https://samcotech.com/what-is-lithium-extraction-and-how-doe... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydroxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydroxide [4] https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/metals/battery-metals/lithium-hydroxide-cif-cjk-fastmarkets.contractSpecs.html https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/metals/battery-metals/lithi...
  - dlkasajiewo 4y ago
    Nooooo! you can't use wikipedia as a source it's not reliable >:( jkjk. Thanks for sharing!
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Hmmm so they don’t really disassemble the batteries. They just grind them all up and then use physical and chemical processes to filter the bits they want? I guess this makes sense at scale. I’m not sure what I was picturing.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      Generally, all forms of recycling that reauire manual dis-assebly don't really work. Labour cost is too much. Broken and damaged items dont dissasemble. each itme is unique, that sort of thing. Thats why plastic recycling and electribics recycling doesn't work. Recycling of metals and glass succeedd because you can just grind and melt everything.
      - Waterluvian 4y ago