Got Battery?

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Got battery? I sure do!

Phone. Car. Tablet. Laptop. Doggie tracker. Toothbrush.

The list goes on!

Battery tech keeps bringing us smaller, faster charging, longer lasting portable power for our insatiable devices.

Consider the battery?

Most of us don’t give a second thought to our batteries except when we need to recharge them or, if you’re like me, when we forget to recharge them. We rarely consider where they came from – other than a store – or where they go when we’re done with them.

Batteries just form part of daily life in the 21st century.

Complex web of batteries

But behind the scenes, the processes of construction and deconstruction these power-storing puppies incorporate a complex web of earth extraction technologies and geo-political challenges.

That common lithium-ion battery we just take for granted is far from simple. Minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and graphite form its building blocks.

For those who like to know How Things Work, the Essential Minerals Association explains that each mineral plays a role: Lithium carries the charge, nickel creates energy density, cobalt and manganese stabilize it, and graphite forms the anode, which is the place where power flows in and out of the battery. It’s a virtual chemical soup.

What is a battery’s life cycle?

Lithium-ion is only one type of battery, but all types share a similar life cycle: a heavy draw on dollars and environment to create them, a period of use, and then disposal.  The drive to create batteries that store more, cost less, last longer, and fit into a smaller package continues as our devices proliferate.

If you think battery challenges are new, think again. We’re been using lead-acid batteries in cars our whole driving lives – and after decades upon decades of development they last longer, hold more power, and we’ve even figured out how to handle them when they’ve been spent.

Fun fact – the oh so common lead and sulfuric acid battery has become one of the most successfully recycled products; more than 95 of the lead in the battery now gets recovered after its useful life has ended.

Isn’t is a bit crazy to dump all this value?

This concept of recovery grows increasingly important as we look at newer battery tech and their reliance on complex stews of minerals – minerals of high dollar cost, high environmental costs, and limited supply. I mean literally, only so much of these minerals even exist within planet earth.

The chemical reactions that charge, store, and release power diminish, but end-of-life batteries still contain those critical minerals. Isn’t a bit crazy to just dump all this value?

A breakthrough at Rice University?

I recently read about a new technology developed  at Rice University’s materials science and nanoengineering department. It uses water-based solutions to extract these valuable metals and minerals from battery waste. And it claims to do with within minutes.

Here’s the catchy name of the process: Aqueous Redox-Active Amino Chloride Salts for Efficient Hydrometallurgical Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries

How does battery recycling work?

Currently, to recycle a battery you dissolve the metals into a solution and then let the various components precipitate out. It’s sort of like using a really nasty and toxic solvent to release the bonds that hold the battery together and then – hours or days later – filtering out the different bits from the resulting goo.

This process takes time, effort, and is frankly pretty unhealthy for people and planet, although in theory it can scale and be commercially viable.

What did Rice find out?

The folks at Rice came up with a twist. Instead of using the expected solvents they worked with a safer set of water-based chemicals: aqueous amino chloride salts, with the winner winner chicken dinner turning out to be a solution based on hydroxylammonium chloride (HACl).

A Rice University summary says that this HACl-based solution extracted about 65% of key battery metals in just one minute at room temperature . This grew to more than 75% with a slightly longer processing time, also measured in minutes. No high temperatures or long reaction times needed.

I share the specifics because I’m always curious, but the real take away here is that we might be able to quickly and efficiently recover elements within a used lithium-ion battery using a less-complex, less hazardous, water-based system.

What does this new tech mean?

This isn’t yet a commercial process, just a proof of concept study … but still … what a difference this could make.

Oh yeah, and get this – the study’s first author is one Simon M. King – who is not a professor/PhD/decades of experience researcher. Nope, he’s a Rice sophomore studying chemical and biomolecular engineering who did this work as a summer research fellow at the Rice Advanced Materials Institute.

Moments like this give me hope for our future.

For more information:

The Essential Minerals Association What’s Inside a Battery? https://www.essentialminerals.org/blog/battery-minerals/

Rice University published study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202513823

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