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skedeebs t1_jeehi8u wrote

Scale it up, folks! We'll all be better off reducing the amount of virgin lithium that needs to be mined, or at least have another practical source if we need more than can be mined.

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Non-FungibleMan t1_jeex3ly wrote

Redwood Materials is already recovering 95% of all battery minerals, and is already scaling. The electric vehicle future will be almost entirely closed loop, with little mining needed.

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RiiCreated t1_jef8vei wrote

That’s cool :) but to play Devils Advocate here, what incentive would the auto manufacturers have to switch to this method? I’m assuming 100% of EVs right now will come off the production line with brand new batteries, especially Teslas since they have a deal with Panasonic. How many will have to be manufactured with 100% mined lithium before we can close this loop? Wouldn’t everyone need to own at least one EV before this is possible?

Also, the cost and energy required to recycle these things. Who’s paying for it? And once enough lithium is mined to have a closed loop, how will we offset the damage and pollution caused by raw mining and how long will that take?

Genuine questions, not trying to sound like a bad guy.

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DM_me_ur_tacos t1_jefbrxf wrote

Lithium is lithium. As recycled lithium comes onto the market there will be increasing opportunity for battery manufacturers to use it.

There are already robust salvage markets for copper, steel, aluminum and other valuable, recyclable metals. Auto manufacturers do not necessarily have to do this themselves.

Yes it will cost energy to recycle lithium batteries, and that cost is expected to be small compared to the value of the recovered material.

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[deleted] t1_jefgujd wrote

[removed]

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reven80 t1_jeflbed wrote

Large car batteries are made of tiny cells. Its a matter of connecting them together and putting them in a protective case.

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AviMkv t1_jeftgis wrote

What do you think is cheaper, refining mud full of random shit to lithium or refining a battery made of 4-5 high quality materials including high amounts of lithium?

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AlbertVonMagnus t1_jegnq01 wrote

You could ask this about most products with salvageable materials, but you'd be surprised how often the answer is that the former option is cheaper.

It's a matter of the cost of the salvaging process compared to the value of salvaged materials, versus the cost-value from fresh mining.

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AviMkv t1_jegrpym wrote

Untrue, did you just pull this out your ass?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096232021000287

Why do you think apple makes their MacBooks out of 100% recycled aluminium, certainly not to save the planet. It's just cheaper.

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AlbertVonMagnus t1_jegvtkk wrote

As I said, it depend entirely on the products in question as well as the market. Aluminum is valuable enough to more than pay for salvaging costs for most products that contain a meaningful amount.

Glass meanwhile is currently not cost-effective because the value of salvaged glass has recently fallen below the salvaging cost, even though glass recycling was quite cost-effective in the past. The market is just as important as anything else here.

Solar panels are not cost effective at all to salvage as their components are not particularly valuable but are quite costly to salvage from the panels. Thus they are piling up in landfills wherever there are no regulations that require proper recycling.

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DonQuixBalls t1_jeflb7d wrote

It should be significantly cheaper to recycle than dig it up.

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Bensemus t1_jeguo1j wrote

> I’m assuming 100% of EVs right now will come off the production line with brand new batteries

The batteries will always be new. The lithium used to make those batteries will either come from mines, the sea, or recycling.

It's the same with aluminum cans. Every coke can is new but the aluminum in that can might have been mined 50 years ago or a few months ago.

> How many will have to be manufactured with 100% mined lithium before we can close this loop? Wouldn’t everyone need to own at least one EV before this is possible?

The loop will never be closed. Again using aluminum as the example. Despite how easy it is to recycle, new aluminum is always needed. Recycling just greatly reduces how much mining is needed.

> Also, the cost and energy required to recycle these things. Who’s paying for it?

The people who need to buy lithium. They will either pay for the cost to mine it or they will pay the cost to recycle it.

> And once enough lithium is mined to have a closed loop, how will we offset the damage and pollution caused by raw mining and how long will that take?

Mining lithium really isn't that bad and you have to contrast it with oil extraction as that's what EVs are replacing. Oil extraction and subsequent burning of oil is so bad we might have completely fucked ourselves for centuries. People are completely numb to how insanely dirty fossil fuels are as it's all they've ever known.

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AussieOsborne t1_jegxqb0 wrote

These are the genuine questions asked about any sustainable method. It's cheaper to level a forest than it is to recycle paper, so why shouldn't we just do that instead, always?

The answer is that it isn't going to always be possible. That's what sustainability means.

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rafa-droppa t1_jega0kd wrote

It depends on the future of course, but like how lithium first showed up in phones, then laptops, then larger and larger things - if something comes out to replace lithium in certain use cases, say iron batteries for grid storage, then all that lithium can be recycled back into the mix.

Or if there's an expensive but newer medium that starts going in phones, then tablets, then laptops, then power tools, and so on - all those batteries get recycled back into the lithium pool

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cloudinspector1 t1_jefxmex wrote

Govts would have to mandate all products contain a mix of recycled and aluminum. Probably coax with tax breaks then it becomes something you can build a business on and then it gets created. Then you close the loop when it can be closed, I guess, by mandating increasing percentages of recycled aluminum as capacity rises.

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FillThisEmptyCup t1_jefmzk5 wrote

You'll need a ton of mining just to get there, for many decades.

Plus if it's 95% of lithium recovered (idk), for 1 billion cars that's still effectively needing lithium for 50 million cars every turnover (however long the avg battery car lasts).

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csiz t1_jegh5e4 wrote

You need about 3 times more mining/drilling and processing of oil if we don't get there. Going to EVs is a net reduction in overall mining operations, but it shifts the demand to processing more lithium, copper, some nickel and some rare earth metals for magnets.

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findingmike t1_jefvcpv wrote

Global production of new cars is 80 million per year, so you are talking about a 12 year time span, correct? Also population will start falling around 2050-2060, so production should slowly fall too.

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FillThisEmptyCup t1_jefz2gb wrote

Not if the avg standard of living keeps going up.

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Vitztlampaehecatl t1_jegp1xd wrote

If the standard of living goes up fast enough, developing nations can leapfrog past car-dependency and save their battery capacity for highly battery-efficient micromobility vehicles like ebikes, etrikes, and escooters.

An ebike equipped with a 1KWh battery can go 30 to 50 miles on a charge with throttle alone, while a Tesla Model 3 with 70KWh of battery capacity can go 300 to 375 miles on a charge. That's 70 times as much lithium for only ~8x as much distance, which means that hauling a whole car around with you is about ten times less efficient than an ebike.

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what595654 t1_jeg7uya wrote

If we are playing the what if game. What if more technological advancements are made?

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gophergun t1_jeg9213 wrote

We obviously are, considering it's /r/futurology and predictions about the future are inherently a what if game.

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FillThisEmptyCup t1_jegi9zg wrote

It’s not a big what if because that’s exactly what’s been happening since WW2 globally. Chinese wages went from $0.50 an hour 15 years ago to over $8.

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what595654 t1_jegpl1h wrote

The same could be said for technological advancement. My point is, your data point is not relevant in a vacuum. You have to consider all the other variables to even start any kind of useful analysis.

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Bosco_is_a_prick t1_jegctjx wrote

Also electric cars are expected to last longer as they are much simpler machines compared to ICE cars

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Kruzat t1_jefdow7 wrote

Same with Licycle and Lithion here in Canada!

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usugarbage t1_jegmtq0 wrote

Same with ABTC. They’ve got a similar approach and are working their facility setup.

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usugarbage t1_jegn2so wrote

A closed loop recycling/downcycling will be critical as too many inefficient vehicles are on the horizon of being made.

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lukefive t1_jeet9f5 wrote

The ocean is the biggest practical source but desalination is expensive. They don't really mine it, they use desert floors where old salt water dried up. Lithium is a salt in saltwater so they don't really need to dig much. But in the ocean it's like 0.2%. In salt flats it's like 1%. In recycling it's almost 100%

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Bucktabulous t1_jeezyda wrote

Time to mine the dried-up bed of the great Salt Lake, I guess.

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reven80 t1_jefligi wrote

Its happening with the Salton sea in California. Its rich in minerals and already polluted a long while back so not much animal life around.

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ApricotBeneficial452 t1_jef2j9l wrote

Excuse the tinfoil on my head, but is it being done ON PURPOSE?!

I have heard, but haven't retained the reason it is happening. Care to eli5?

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AgentTin t1_jefblzn wrote

Too many people in the desert using too much water. Farming is the biggest culprit. A long time ago they made a plan to distribute the water but they gave away too much even then. The problem has become worse because there hasn't been enough rain in the region for, like, a decade. Now unless people agree to stop using water the place could become uninhabitable, at least for the number of people who want to live there.

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Bucktabulous t1_jefsxcr wrote

Yeah, for whatever reason, they've chosen the deserts of Utah to grow Alfalfa, a grass-style feedstock that needs an upsetting amount of water.

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sillyslime89 t1_jeg5ki5 wrote

Alfalfa to ship to the Middle East to feed race horses for the royalty

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GI_X_JACK t1_jeg8vfi wrote

Or it solves some of the issue of "what do we do with the salt after we desalinate" making desalination for drinking water more attractive.

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Bensemus t1_jeguw5x wrote

Ya lithium extraction from sea water can be paired with desalination for drinking water. Desalination is already being used and with water becoming more scarce we will increase our reliance on it.

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an0therblizzard t1_jefkbfa wrote

Its very likely, and probably within 10 years, not nearly as much lithium will be in batteries at all. There are so many interesting alternatives coming out that actually seem to have a lot of potential.

Even things like adding iron to reduce the amount of lithium is already a thing.

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Poncho_au t1_jeh4j7r wrote

It doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The amount of lithium batteries ready for recycling vs the demand for lithium is likely low single digit percentages and almost certainly will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

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ConradBHart42 t1_jefv8j8 wrote

I don't want it to just scale up, I also want it to scale down so that's approachable to the civilian scrapper.

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Miatamadness t1_jeerya8 wrote

Lithium reminds me of the story of aluminum, which too was only available via destructive and expensive bauxite mining in third world countries. Now most all aluminum is sourced via recycling and makes for much cheaper manufacturing than sourcing from raw materials like we did decades ago.

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chth t1_jefevrx wrote

Another fun story, electrical discharge machining or EDM was independently developed in the USSR and USA at the same time, but for extremely different reasons.

In the USSR they had an abundance of tungsten which is incredibly hard to machine using cutting tools, being as cutting tools are made of softer or equally hard materials most notably tungsten carbide. To make use of the tungsten, EDM was the only process available. In turn many structures and aircraft from the period have parts that would be extremely financially irresponsible to produce in the USA.

However the USA at the time had developed aluminum to build lightweight structures and products across basically every industry and the only problem they faced was that their tools kept breaking inside the relatively soft metal. The solution for this issue was using EDM to burn the broken tool bits out of the workpiece.

Now EDM is used for many purposes beyond these two, and you'd piss off an EDM machinist if you asked them to stop what they were doing to get a broken tap out of something.

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mtbsnow t1_jeg8jc5 wrote

I've seen shops have an old edm for burning taps out of things.

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chth t1_jegcmh0 wrote

There are even tabletop EDM tap removal tools these days. When you're a new guy to EDM you might show up to work with a few taps to remove for a while on the old Sodick, but the guy on the big ass Makino isn't.

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chippingtommy t1_jeg0h6k wrote

> Lithium reminds me of the story of aluminum, which too was only available via destructive and expensive bauxite mining

but lithium mining isn't expensive or destructive. Maybe you're thinking of shale oil mining?

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hunter5226 t1_jegk2nk wrote

Can you provide evidence of a non-destructive lithium mine? Not saying I don't believe you, but I have just never heard of lithium mining as anything other than destructive.

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Beyond-Time t1_jegq5ku wrote

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/24/1123564599/chile-lithium-mining-atacama-desert

This area is largely uninhabitable for people, has few wildlife (note: not 0) and is not suitable for growing crops or housing any reserves. It's about as environmentally friendly as it gets. Now, if you consider evaporating water off of brine in a high altitude, uninhabitable desert as environmentally destructive, and would use the same term for destroying forests with much bio-diversity, than the term is meaningless.

Point being, this is where a large chunk of the worlds lithium comes from and it's a desert, and I would consider it non-destructive.

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chrisdh79 OP t1_jeebao2 wrote

From the article: A recycling method developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) recovers up to 70% of lithium from battery waste without corrosive chemicals, high temperatures, and prior sorting of materials being required. The method combines mechanical processes with chemical reactions and enables inexpensive, energy-efficient, and environmentally compatible recycling of any type of lithium-ion battery. The results are reported in Communications Chemistry.

Lithium-ion batteries are omnipresent in our life. They are not only used for the wireless power supply of notebooks, smartphones, toys, remote controls, and other small devices, but also are the most important energy storage systems for the rapidly growing electric mobility sector. Increasing use of these batteries eventually results in the need for economically and ecologically sustainable recycling methods.

Presently, mainly nickel and cobalt, copper and aluminum, as well as steel are recovered from battery waste for reuse. Lithium recovery still is expensive and hardly profitable. Existing recovery methods mostly are of metallurgical character and consume a lot of energy and/or produce hazardous by-products. In contrast to this, mechanochemical approaches based on mechanical processes to induce chemical reactions promise to reach a higher yield and sustainability with a smaller expenditure.

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dstar-dstar t1_jeejioy wrote

Didnt American Battery Technology Company already prove doing this and are almost done with the start of their recycling company in Nevada?

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could_use_a_snack t1_jef65w5 wrote

I think it's a new technology that uses less energy and less dangerous chemicals to recover the lithium. It might not get as much out, but it's more cost effective.

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ChronWeasely t1_jeeuusp wrote

Can this be combined with something else to increase the total recovery? 70% in an efficient process is good, but losing 30% each cycle isn't. I'm assuming then a secondary processing with more energy intensive means will recover most of the remaining 30%, but costing approximately 70% less to process due to decreased volume?

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findingmike t1_jefw04o wrote

Hopefully they can improve the process with some experimentation.

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NeighborhoodDog t1_jef5tq1 wrote

I thought redwood materials was already recovering 90%+ of battery materials.

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matroosoft t1_jegq2u0 wrote

They are, and as far as I know profitable too.

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planetharrier t1_jeevd8i wrote

Mechanomechanical? A device that is fully mechanical, but also mechanical.

science.

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Ghetto_Cheese t1_jeevt6p wrote

It actually says mechanoCHEMICAL, took me twice to actually read it correctly.

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VRGIMP27 t1_jeevev8 wrote

EffectiveLithium recycling and cells that use a solid electrolyte would be revolutionary.

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[deleted] t1_jeemvcl wrote

[removed]

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whiteknives t1_jeen8xm wrote

Considering current methods can extract 99% usable material, yeah 70% is low.

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Pehz t1_jeeqh2v wrote

But current methods aren't both inexpensive and environmentally friendly, right? The improvement isn't the yield, it's the rest of the process.

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whiteknives t1_jef8l8q wrote

I’d say wasting 30% of the lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc. in the new way isn’t exactly “environmentally friendly” either. Those wasted materials don’t just disappear.

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Numai_theOnlyOne t1_jefvcbb wrote

I might be wrong but aren't there already two companies that claim to recover already 96+% ?

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GwynbleiddSilver t1_jeekmsk wrote

I guess it would be nice if it can be used for other applications and it's safer for the environment, but we need to move away from lithium batteries.

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Beyond-Time t1_jeeo9ue wrote

Sure, what is your proposed alternative and how will it be comparable to current technology?

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CaptainToker t1_jeesko9 wrote

Ev bikes use a really small fraction of lithium compared to ev cars, and are super efficient and have enough torque to pull trailers. But car manufacturers don't want you to know that.

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Beyond-Time t1_jeeuqro wrote

In their current state, you aren't pulling any significant amount of weight any significant distance in any reasonable time with that. Not to knock EV bikes, I think they're great. But this isn't that move away from lithium that other other guy spoke about. If this process is as good as the article states it to be, then we might never really need to move away from lithium for a very long time.

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Necoras t1_jeew6yg wrote

Sodium batteries are an interesting upcoming technology. Should be interesting to see how they compare once they hit the market.

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Beyond-Time t1_jeeyazm wrote

Yes, I think that and vanadium batteries, if feasible and combined with nuclear base load energy, can change the entire energy landscape as far as large scale storage is concerned. Slightly hopeful.

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ahecht t1_jef0kv4 wrote

Vanadium is more toxic than lithium.

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Beyond-Time t1_jef0umz wrote

Very obviously it would be contained. Vanadium is just one of the projects that can pan out, albeit expensive. Other forms would be preferable.

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GwynbleiddSilver t1_jeeorqx wrote

Well there's tons of research and development on that front, go and investigate it yourself.

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Beyond-Time t1_jeeoznr wrote

Lol. You can't even provide for your assertion. I already know the answer so it's ok ; )

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GwynbleiddSilver t1_jeepxwh wrote

Lol, like I even need to on Reddit, ok buddy

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plumberoncrack t1_jeesmmx wrote

Imagine if scientists were like this... "I had this awesome discovery, but I won't tell anyone even the first thing about it, go study the topic yourself". Science and progress are about sharing, on the micro and macro scales.

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GwynbleiddSilver t1_jeeubnr wrote

Get real man, imagine if scientists relied on Reddit for discoveries. There's appropriate forums for that type of discourse and this ain't it. Don't come on here expecting everything to spoon fed to you and then try to criticize and demean someone for not providing you answers like you're entitled to anything on here. Get off your high horse and stop being a condescending snob.

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grundar t1_jef5cq1 wrote

> we need to move away from lithium batteries.

Why?

The dominant lithium producer is Australia, which produces via standard hard-rock mining, so producing most lithium is no more harmful than any other developed-world mine.

Compared to the 7,500 Mt of coal mined per year and 4,200 Mt of oil extracted per year, mining 0.1Mt of lithium is not an urgent environmental or social issue.

(In case you were thinking about cobalt, LFP batteries use no cobalt and will reach 50% market share in the next few years.)

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wigwamyurtfish t1_jef2164 wrote

That's great. I wonder, once scaled, if it will be done with a variety of batteries or only large car batteries. Hopefully that gets sorted out along the way.

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verisimilitude404 t1_jefhcom wrote

Interesting. Recycling, I feel, is going to be big business in the decades to come.

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zackman115 t1_jefms1e wrote

I get why people are skeptical about switching vehicles to electric. There are a lot of negatives that people tend to over look just because they want to look cool in a Tesla and brag about helping the environment. But the fact is we can solve most of the problems electric vehicles have with some good old fashioned R&D. As much as oil companies try to look like they can do the same, it's just not possible. Gas cars just can't fix any of their remaining issues.

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findingmike t1_jefwbv3 wrote

I'm already happy with my electric vehicle. It has so many little perks that make it better than an ICE vehicle.

I think the only remaining issue is that some areas don't have enough chargers.

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zackman115 t1_jefx3mt wrote

There are a few more issues than that, fam. Try searching electric vehicles cons on YouTube. It's the way of the future but it's important that we do it right this time.

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whilst t1_jegd2w8 wrote

Literally they were talking about the car they already have, and their own experience of it being positive. They're not wrong or uninformed for liking their own car.

I also like my EV. It's the best car I've ever owned.

They'll only get better.

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findingmike t1_jefxyiq wrote

I was only talking about my experience.

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zackman115 t1_jeh4l77 wrote

Ya I know. I'm just saying there is more to it that we should all be aware of.

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FuturologyBot t1_jeefl4x wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/chrisdh79:

From the article: A recycling method developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) recovers up to 70% of lithium from battery waste without corrosive chemicals, high temperatures, and prior sorting of materials being required. The method combines mechanical processes with chemical reactions and enables inexpensive, energy-efficient, and environmentally compatible recycling of any type of lithium-ion battery. The results are reported in Communications Chemistry.

Lithium-ion batteries are omnipresent in our life. They are not only used for the wireless power supply of notebooks, smartphones, toys, remote controls, and other small devices, but also are the most important energy storage systems for the rapidly growing electric mobility sector. Increasing use of these batteries eventually results in the need for economically and ecologically sustainable recycling methods.

Presently, mainly nickel and cobalt, copper and aluminum, as well as steel are recovered from battery waste for reuse. Lithium recovery still is expensive and hardly profitable. Existing recovery methods mostly are of metallurgical character and consume a lot of energy and/or produce hazardous by-products. In contrast to this, mechanochemical approaches based on mechanical processes to induce chemical reactions promise to reach a higher yield and sustainability with a smaller expenditure.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/127j0cr/inexpensive_and_environmentally_friendly/jeebao2/

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TravelinDan88 t1_jeemq4r wrote

That thumbnail is Dave Bautista if he pursued science.

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xFaceDeskx t1_jef45zj wrote

Don't say it's environmentally friendly, republicans may hear you and disagree

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Fiyanggu t1_jef4xhp wrote

What happens to the remaining 30% lithium? Losing approximately a third of the lithium seems wasteful.

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Sylvurphlame t1_jefjhse wrote

As opposed to not recovering any?

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Fiyanggu t1_jeg6qn5 wrote

So the remark was made to solicit any ideas of how they recover the 30%. Your useless reply added zero information. Thanks for nothing.

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Sylvurphlame t1_jeg729c wrote

Considering you didn’t actually specify

> any ideas of how they recover the 30%

your question itself was rather vague and useless. Still despite your rudeness, I’m glad you clarified. Perhaps someone will better answer your question now you’ve actually asked a clear one.

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AvatarJuan t1_jefb0qw wrote

Use a different method on the remaining material, maybe.

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kaboomatomic t1_jefdhzz wrote

Can’t wait for big oil to push out some misinfo about this.

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zinton47 t1_jefrmvc wrote

Good, now do it for Nickel and Cobolt which is actually needed for NCA (Nickel Cobolt Alumium) li ion batteries that are used in cars. Lithium is relatively abundant, I hear the real bottle neck to electrical car production is the two more rare resources of Nickel and Cobolt.

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Bensemus t1_jegvg62 wrote

Nickel isn't rare. Cobalt isn't rare either but almost all of it comes from the Congo and has pretty severe human rights issues. The good news is there are already cobalt free EVs like the base Tesla Model 3 and all EV makers have reduced the amount of cobalt in their batteries.

Cobalt is also used to refine oil so that's a fun fact that more people need to be aware of.

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Toast_Sapper t1_jefyszx wrote

I would be excited to work with recycled lithium batteries!

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farticustheelder t1_jegxshq wrote

Odd? Redwood is already claiming 96% So an explanation as to why this is somehow relevant is indicated.

Maybe they are exploring a different pathway with a different cost/payoff matrix?

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Doomscrolla99 t1_jefu5vu wrote

Does it restore the vast tracks of strip-mined land or purify the resulting tailing pools?

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