[ausev] Battery disposal

[Marc Kohler]

It is a common misconception that there is lithium metal in lithium ion
batteries; there is not.  (Some early Lithium Metal Polymer batteries did
include lithium metal but are they not made any more.  There might be some
lithium metal used in primary batteries that the military might use, but not
in secondary/rechargeable batteries for EV use that I'm aware of).

Lithium ion comes in a variety of flavors, with most sharing the same anode
but changing the cathode materials.
These differences include cobalt, nickel, manganese, iron phosphate,
vanadium, and various ratios in between.  Some of these items are toxic
(like nickel and cobalt) but have such a high value that they are reclaimed
and hence recycled.  Others that don't have any resale value are usually
frozen, crushed, and put in land fill.  There are many groups looking into
ways of dealing with this issue on a large scale.

Near term goals include reusing the batteries in less demanding applications
after they are "spent" in their original use (i.e. car batteries become UPS
back up batteries which then might become home PV batteries) to maximize
their high cycle life potential.

Marc Kohler

-----Original Message-----
From: ausev-bounces at austinev.org [mailto:ausev-bounces at austinev.org] On
Behalf Of Steve Ross
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 9:28 AM
To: ausev at austinev.org
Subject: [ausev] Battery disposal


I was talking about EV's to a friend and we were talking about exchanging
the entire battery pack to charge.  His comment/ concern was 'how are we
going to dispose of all this Lithium in the batteries'?  Isn't this
considered 'heavy metal' and will we have to treat it like nuclear waste?

Has anybody figured out what we are going to do with all these old batteries
that have toxic waste products?  And what about the new lithium processes
that will make even more unique metals to deal with?

Steve Ross

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