News is circulating about the difficulty or high price of companies obtaining access to lithium metal, which is the basic component in making many of the rechargeable batteries used in many of our essential devices, from phones and smart watches, to electric cars.
Lithium is not rare. True, but its environmental and political costs are the most important factors for its lack of availability in global markets.
The world’s known lithium reserves are not only good, but with our average annual consumption rates of lithium, this global reserve could last us 200 years!
This is detailed in an episode Zero carbonIn which we learn with sustainability expert Imad Saad, why, despite not worrying about its depletion, do we have to recycle lithium?
Is recycled lithium better?
This is the conclusion of a study published in the journal Joule Energy Research, where the study’s co-researcher, Yan Wang, professor of materials science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said that this recycling method preserves some of the original composition of the battery materials, while removing non-essential components. Adding new elements, to give the recycled battery “superior performance” and faster charging; And even a longer life thanks to the porosity or micro-voids resulting from recycling.
There are already recycled lithium batteries on the market, but in addition to the limited availability of them, there are challenges of their high prices and the reliability of their performance, and these are challenges that the Joule study has overcome, as it concluded.
Talking about lithium is talking about rechargeable batteries and not misdisposing them by recycling them, so that they do not become “wasted electronic waste.” This is the same case with non-rechargeable batteries, such as the batteries of small control devices in their various forms, which are composed of materials that are toxic to humans before they are harmful. On the environment and climate.
Air batteries
In addition to the economic recycling opportunities for electronic waste, in the Zero Carbon episode we discuss the batteries of the future and alternatives to lithium, such as air-with-iron, air-with-aluminium, or air-with-zinc batteries!
2023-10-02 10:27:09
#Recycled #lithium…is
