Battery Recycling Efforts Gain Momentum
Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - 10:04:25
Over in America the government is setting an example that the rest of the world should follow when it comes to recycling lithium ion batteries, with the opening of a major new facility designed to process used cells going hand in hand with a competition which aims to increase the amount of research being conducted in this area.
Energy Live News reports that the ReCell Centre is an important recycling site for batteries, with various advance techniques deployed in order to reclaim the precious minerals that are found within the cells that power modern smartphones.
Lithium, cobalt and other materials can go to waste if they are not extracted from old mobile phone batteries. This creates issues in terms of sustainability and can also lead to environmental hazards if improper disposal occurs.
There will be a greater need to offer battery recycling going forwards not just because smartphone sales are still growing and people upgrade every 12 to 24 months, selling their old mobile phones as a result, but also due to the rise of electric vehicles.
EVs will become commonplace in the UK and internationally over the next decade, with tighter regulations on emissions and eventual plans to ban the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars on the horizon.
Large banks of lithium ion batteries are required to power EVs of today, so until new energy storage technology is developed or the popularity of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles becomes relevant, there will be a significant churn of larger volumes of li-ion cells.
The process of mining for the minerals needed to make these batteries is problematic in its own right, both from an ecological and an ethical standpoint. So any steps that can be taken to reduce the need for the raw materials and instead increase reuse and recycling should be applauded.
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