On 12/27/20 5:26 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:
I'm just not sure where all that Li-Ion will go after 15 - 20 years of use, though...
One European manufacturer (the one whose battery I bought) says that as of now, they can only recycle 20% of each battery they sell. To me, that sounds like just the metal case enclosure, and the plastic facia.
Ah well, maybe disposal tech. for Li-Ion storage will have improved by 2040.
Interestingly, the Lithium content is the, in theory, valuable part of it. There's not actually much Li in a typical Li-Ion rechargeable battery (much less than a Li metal primary cell), but my understanding is that it's enough to have people interested considering that we're already basically consuming the world's Lithium supply just about as fast as we can economically mine and refine it. However, that may account for the apparently low recyleable content of a given battery. By mass and volume, it's mostly electrodes, which are common metals, and paper separator which is worthless. I would imagine that, as "dead" Li-Ion cells become more available and demand presumably continues to rise (absent a better battery tech), folks will get more serious about recycling the electrolyte. -- Brandon Martin