# Disposal or Recycling of LiFePO4 Lithium



## tenthousandclowns (Jun 21, 2012)

Is there a thread on getting rid of dead LiFePO4?

If not, what do you do with them?


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

tenthousandclowns said:


> Is there a thread on getting rid of dead LiFePO4?
> 
> If not, what do you do with them?


Nothing. Hang on them until we know what to do with them.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

How dead are they?


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## njloof (Nov 21, 2011)

I overcharged a couple of a123s until they expanded; the local recycling place accepted them.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Carbon, Lithium, alcohol, copper, aluminum or Nickel, and mylar or plastic. Mmmmm. A little today no biggie but in the future we do need a way to recycle the components for reuse. 

Bloated A-123 cells are dead dead. 

If like a low capacity prismatic like the TS then just repurpose it for solar backup. 

Until recyclers come around for these then I'd just hang on to them.


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## tenthousandclowns (Jun 21, 2012)

Ya it seems like sooner or later somebody would want at least the copper and aluminum if they could get it separated.

I have two dead 260ah thundersky cells. Dead like 0.000volts. Just drove too far with no instrumentation. I still have them in series with the rest until my replacements come in, and they seem to carry the current just fine. They come up to 0.25v or less under charge. I read somewhere about cells 'reversing' but I don't read any negative voltage out of them so I hope they are ok as busbars for a week or so.... I am monitoring my charging while I am 7v under.....

I need to get working on some gauges so I don't do this again....


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

and with an improperly bottom balanced pack. The cells may not be totally dead but more than likely damaged. I'd take them out and run with a lower pack to avoid heating them up in reverse while driving current through them. They do get mighty hot that way. 

Sorry to hear you did not have any sort of instrumentation on board. You need at minimum a volt meter and amp meter. And know you distances and properly bottom balance your cells before trying that again.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

the guts are *mostly* copper and aluminum foil.... what little 'goop' is the LiFePO4 is non-toxic, so recyclers ought to love'em.


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## Electric Forklift Guy (Dec 13, 2012)

Dont hold onto them ,throw them away now while its still easy (and cheap )

It is difficult and expensive to recover the materials in a lithium battery and since you have iron cathodes instead of cobalt there's less than 50 cents of recoverables per pound

So it costs more to recycle a LiFePO than the materials are worth

The only reason to recycle them is to reduce toxic waste in the landfills

In the near future you will start seeing disposal fees in most countries for LiFePO batteries ,and it won't be cheap.


People assume that since the "Lead Acid industry" recycles 97% of its lead and pays for used batteries ,the lithium battery manufacturers will soon be the same

Not going to happen.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> It is difficult and expensive to recover the materials in a lithium battery and since you have iron cathodes instead of cobalt



HUH?
we talking about the same kind of batteries? Don't think so...


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

tenthousandclowns said:


> Is there a thread on getting rid of dead LiFePO4?
> 
> If not, what do you do with them?


I estimate that in the larger cells close to half the weight is copper. Thats about 3.5 lbs of copper in a 100AH cell. Copper currently sells for $3.68 a lb or around $12 to $13 if you were buying it. At some point in time everything in these cells will be recycled unless they just go away because of some big advance in battery technology. You could take them to a scrap recycling place. There isn't anything considered an environmental hazard in them so you could probably just pitch them in the trash if that suits you. Just make sure that there is no charge left because they could cause a fire from a short.

It is a good question.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> People assume that since the "Lead Acid industry" recycles 97% of its lead and pays for used batteries ,the lithium battery manufacturers will soon be the same
> 
> Not going to happen.


Lead is worth about $1 a lb and the typical car battery weighs about 35 lbs and they pay you about 8$ for a battery. They make a lot of money recycling the lead in a lead acid battery. The approximate equivalent in weight would be 7 100AH LiFePo4 batteries. This would be about 35 lbs of batteries and about half of this is copper. The price for copper is $3.68 a lb today so the value of the copper in this would be $64. Probably about 1/4 of that weight is aluminum so add that in and so with todays price ($0.91) that would be about $8. So even if all you recovered was the copper and aluminum you have $72 in recoverables vs $33 for the same weight of material. The plastic case will easily recycle as well.

If these batteries make it there will be people lining up to recycle them.


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## Salty9 (Jul 13, 2009)

Have you checked this thread?

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...p3.html?highlight=charging+dead+lithium+cells


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## Electric Forklift Guy (Dec 13, 2012)

dougingraham said:


> Lead is worth about $1 a lb and the typical car battery weighs about 35 lbs and they pay you about 8$ for a battery. They make a lot of money recycling the lead in a lead acid battery. The approximate equivalent in weight would be 7 100AH LiFePo4 batteries. This would be about 35 lbs of batteries and about half of this is copper. The price for copper is $3.68 a lb today so the value of the copper in this would be $64. Probably about 1/4 of that weight is aluminum so add that in and so with todays price ($0.91) that would be about $8. So even if all you recovered was the copper and aluminum you have $72 in recoverables vs $33 for the same weight of material. The plastic case will easily recycle as well.
> 
> If these batteries make it there will be people lining up to recycle them.


Lets see , there's about 1600 dollars worth of lead and antimony in a ton of lead acid batteries

Theres less than 500 dollars of metals in a ton of Lithium iron phosphate batteries

Lead is also easier to recycle than any of the material in a lithium battery

its actually cheaper to refine lithium from ores/salts than to recycle it 

Most of the time someone takes a LiFePO4 battery for recycling what they are actually doing is sending it to a company that buys used batteries to TEST and resell the good cells they find....the rest go in the trash


These things were designed to be disposable , not recycled ...so of course the EPA is already talking about banning them from landfills.( dont ask why, the EPA has been doing goofy shit like this for decades, they actually made it illegal to dump sea salt in the ocean)

Its a virtual certainty that in the near future the EPA ,and its European equivalents , will create guidelines for the disposal of large cell LFP batteries and you will wind up PAYING someone to take them away.

If you have bad cells, and you're SURE they are bad, throw them in the trash while you still can.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

There's plenty of recycling places that will take them, but some may not take large cells, just call around. Batteries+ may take them. There are a few here in Portland that will take lithium. 

What you SHOULD do, is recycle them while you can still do it for FREE. 

Don't throw them in the landfill, that's the worst thing you can do.... that's the worst possible advise.... Part of driving an electric car is to HELP the environment and to stop burning fossil fuels.... why? Because they pollute... just like throwing a battery in the trash does.

Take some time out of your day, call around and see if places will take them.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> Lets see , there's about 1600 dollars worth of lead and antimony in a ton of lead acid batteries
> 
> Theres less than 500 dollars of metals in a ton of Lithium iron phosphate batteries


Where do you get this number? It looks like there is closer to $4000 of copper and aluminum in a ton of LiFePo4 batteries.


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## Electric Forklift Guy (Dec 13, 2012)

dougingraham said:


> Where do you get this number? It looks like there is closer to $4000 of copper and aluminum in a ton of LiFePo4 batteries.


Article in the Boston Financial

http://finance.boston.com/boston/ne...anced_lithium_ion_batteries_won't_be_recycled

Study by Argonne National Laboratory

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehicle...w_2009/propulsion_materials/pmp_05_gaines.pdf

Article by the CEO of CADEX Electronics

http://www.ecnmag.com/articles/2012/02/battery-recycling-business



Basically they all say the same thing , because of the high cost of recycling Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries and the low value of the recovered metals its not going to happen unless the government REQUIRES it ...at which point you will PAY to dispose of your batteries and it will be expensive.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Just like making the batteries, recycling costs scale. It would cost nearly as much to recycle the handful of LiFePO4 that is EOL now as it would to recycle the hundreds of tons that reach EOL 20-30 years from now.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> Article in the Boston Financial
> 
> http://finance.boston.com/boston/ne...anced_lithium_ion_batteries_won't_be_recycled
> 
> ...


The John Petersen article is flat out incorrect at least for the Prismatic LiFePo4 cells. The only number I agree with is the cost of the Lead Acid recovery which is a little low for todays lead price.

The Argonne one seems to only consider the recycling of the lithium which is completely unimportant as there is so little actually in the batteries.

The last article has a spiffy chart at the end which doesn't even mention the copper which is the most valuable thing in these batteries. It doesn't show the whole makeup of the batteries either. I am not saying they are lying, just that somehow they have overlooked what seems to be a pretty important part of the recycling equation.

My estimates could be off but they would have to be off by a a factor of 2 just to get the recoverables down to the same value as the lead in lead acid batteries and to get to the numbers in those articles I would need to wrong by an order of magnitude. And that is just considering the Copper and Aluminum foils.

The temps to get the metals back out are higher than Lead which is 621F. For Aluminum its 1221F and for Copper it is 1984F.

However I agree that for it to be practical to build the infrastructure there needs to be a lot of batteries and since they will probably last longer than the typical life of a car we may be 20 years out. That is 10 years before the numbers are sufficient and then 10 more years before they start needing to be recycled. It is certainly likely that in the next 10 to 15 years there could be a big battery breakthrough which would be a game changer.


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## rochesterricer (Jan 5, 2011)

dougingraham said:


> However I agree that for it to be practical to build the infrastructure there needs to be a lot of batteries and since they will probably last longer than the typical life of a car we may be 20 years out. That is 10 years before the numbers are sufficient and then 10 more years before they start needing to be recycled. It is certainly likely that in the next 10 to 15 years there could be a big battery breakthrough which would be a game changer.


I don't know about that. As EV's become more popular, more of them will get totalled in accidents. Its likely that a portion of those will be bad enough that the traction pack can't be reused. It might not take too long for that to add up to a rather significant number, depending on how much EV sales increase in the coming years.


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## jeffcoat (Apr 16, 2012)

dougingraham said:


> The approximate equivalent in weight would be 7 100AH LiFePo4 batteries. This would be about 35 lbs of batteries and about half of this is copper. The price for copper is $3.68 a lb today so the value of the copper in this would be $64. Probably about 1/4 of that weight is aluminum so add that in and so with todays price ($0.91) that would be about $8.


Where are you getting this information? From what I saw in the Thundersky manual, the LiFePO4 cells I have are 10% Cu, 6% Al, 42% Fe and 3.4% Li. If you have other sources I would love to see them.

http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/Manuals/Thundersky%20Product%20Manual.pdf


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## Electric Forklift Guy (Dec 13, 2012)

jeffcoat said:


> Where are you getting this information? From what I saw in the Thundersky manual, the LiFePO4 cells I have are 10% Cu, 6% Al, 42% Fe and 3.4% Li. If you have other sources I would love to see them.
> 
> http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/Manuals/Thundersky%20Product%20Manual.pdf



I gave up trying to explain it to them yesterday when one of them ignored two articles by an economist and a CEO from the battery recycling industry....Then blew off a peer reviewed study by Argonne National Laboratory

We are dealing with a "Religion of Recycling" that wont give up on the fantasy that a small amount of copper will pay for the collection, disassembly , sorting , refining and disposal of LiFePO4's


1. Only about 10% of the battery is copper
2. The aluminum ISN'T recoverable 
3. The lithium costs more to recycle than it costs to produce
4. Iron is cheap
5. The other materials (like phosphate and plastic ) are nearly worthless

The only lithium batteries that you can recycle profitably are lithium cobalt because of the cobalt ......and its only marginally profitable when they get the batteries for free.

All other " Lithium Recycling Centers" are actually lithium TESTING centers , the good ones get resold the bad ones go in the trash.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

jeffcoat said:


> Where are you getting this information? From what I saw in the Thundersky manual, the LiFePO4 cells I have are 10% Cu, 6% Al, 42% Fe and 3.4% Li. If you have other sources I would love to see them.
> 
> http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/Manuals/Thundersky%20Product%20Manual.pdf



There are similar numbers on the many MSDS forms for lithium iron phosphate batteries that are visible with a quick google search. They all put copper content in the 5% to 10%-ish weight range. 
That's a significant amount but not enough to make economics a big recycling driver.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> I gave up trying to explain it to them yesterday when one of them ignored two articles by an economist.....


I recommend everyone ignore anything and everything John Petersen says. He is out to further his own pocketbook and agenda at the expense of anybody and anything else. He certainly doesn't let the truth, common sense or worldly good stand in his way.

And iron may be cheap and plastic nearly worthless, but these materials are widely recycled now. Why wouldn't we want to recycle those materials from batteries? Maybe recycling isn’t about profit but about the right thing to do.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to pre-process the batteries to remove and isolate the recyclable materials. The main concern would be safety, so precautions would be needed before attempting it. If it's merely labor-intensive, it could become a "cottage industry" for people who are retired, disabled, or otherwise willing and able to perform menial labor. Maybe it could be done by prisoners?

I agree that some things, like recycling, and building and driving EVs, and employing energy and resource saving practices, are the "right thing to do".


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

> I recommend everyone ignore anything and everything John Petersen says.


Correct. He is a well known anti EV FUDmeister intent on spreading misinformation about EV's and lithium battery chemistry. Right now there are at least 4 companies working in the lithium battery recycling sector, Toxco, Umicore, Battery Solutions, and Rockwood Lithium. All of these companies have ways or are working on ways to recover even the lithium in these batteries.


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## Electric Forklift Guy (Dec 13, 2012)

JRP3 said:


> Correct. He is a well known anti EV FUDmeister intent on spreading misinformation about EV's and lithium battery chemistry. Right now there are at least 4 companies working in the lithium battery recycling sector, Toxco, Umicore, Battery Solutions, and Rockwood Lithium. All of these companies have ways or are working on ways to recover even the lithium in these batteries.


I think I'm going to be accused of being a "shill for big oil " in 3....2....1.....


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Hey Guys,

I think Forklift Guy's from Norway!

/jk


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Electric Forklift Guy said:


> I think I'm going to be accused of being a "shill for big oil " in 3....2....1.....


I have no evidence of that. I do have plenty of evidence of Mr. Petersen spreading false information, even after I and many others have pointed out his errors and provided proof. He is an accountant with a huge investment in Axion, where he used to work, a lead acid battery manufacturer trying to market a lead carbon battery. If lithium batteries continue to improve and the electric vehicle market takes off there will be little to no market for that product. Mr. Petersen has repeatedly shown that he doesn't really know what he's talking about and he's not that interested in the truth.
In full disclosure I too have invested in Axion, mostly as a small gamble, because I think there is a short term window for them to sell some product.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

jeffcoat said:


> Where are you getting this information? From what I saw in the Thundersky manual, the LiFePO4 cells I have are 10% Cu, 6% Al, 42% Fe and 3.4% Li. If you have other sources I would love to see them.
> 
> http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/Manuals/Thundersky%20Product%20Manual.pdf


A fair question. I looked at a battery that had failed and then had been cut open and made an educated guess. If you look inside you see an alternating series of foils separated by a sheet of porous plastic. These foils are sheets of aluminum alternating with copper and are the current carriers to the battery terminals. Each foil appears to have a very thin coating of the active anode or cathode material but visually they look the same. The coating is thin enough that you can see the aluminum or copper through it. I didn't have a micrometer with me when I was inspecting this cell so I don't know the relative thickness of each layer. I would guess that the copper foil was as thin as practical to handle. These foils were so thin that they easily tore. The aluminum was probably thicker to allow it to carry the same current as the copper side. The plastic separator would need to be as thin as possible. Without measuring I just assumed that they are the same thickness. So by volume about 1/3 of the contents of the battery are copper and 1/3 is aluminum and 1/3 is the plastic separator that is saturated with the electrolyte. The thickness of the active anode/cathode material is minimal.

I don't see where the 42% iron could be and my understanding is that the LiFePo4 is mixed in with the carbon so perhaps that table in your link has to do with the active material and does not include the current carrier foils. Or I could have been mistaken that the foils were made of copper.

I don't currently have a failed LiFePo4 cell to look at. If I get one I will pull it apart and weigh and measure the foils. I did have an A123 26650 cell that I blew up from repeated overcharging but I discarded that as there was no way to recycle it at the time.


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## jeffcoat (Apr 16, 2012)

Thank you. If you or anyone else were able to do this with a bricked LiFePO4 cell (even better, include pictures), I would greatly appreciate it; all I really have to go on is the manual for the cells written in "English." It is quite possible that the information does not include the current carriers, as this was not an actual MSDS-type document for the cells. 
I am always trying to learn and to educate my students and the general public about electric vehicles, and accurate information is key.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

dougingraham said:


> I don't currently have a failed LiFePo4 cell to look at. If I get one I will pull it apart and weigh and measure the foils.


There are some nice photos on this post: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showpost.php?p=336753&postcount=566 Looks like a fair amount of copper.


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## jumpjack (Sep 9, 2012)

Found these:
Disposal of LiPo (ends with "wrap it in newspaper or paper towels and place it in the normal trash. They are landfill safe.")

Disposal of LiFePO4 (ends with "Please recycle the battery at your local battery recycling center. Do not dispose of the battery in the
regular trash.")


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

jumpjack said:


> Found these:
> Disposal of LiPo (ends with "wrap it in newspaper or paper towels and place it in the normal trash. They are landfill safe.")
> 
> Disposal of LiFePO4 (ends with "Please recycle the battery at your local battery recycling center. Do not dispose of the battery in the
> regular trash.")


Well I found that if you *read* the link provided for Life cells number 6 in the Disposal section at the end states:



> 6. After 7-10 days in the saltwater the LiFe battery can be removed. Please recycle the battery at your local battery recycling center. Do not dispose of the battery in the regular trash.


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## jumpjack (Sep 9, 2012)

onegreenev said:


> Well I found that if you *read* the link provided for Life cells number 6 in the Disposal section at the end states:


What about_* you*_ reading at the end of my previous post?!?


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Ohhhhhhh the shame. Ooops


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

It is odd that one says toss in the trash and the other not. But then again we hear all sorts of garbage. Nothin new.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Time for new glasses. Coulda swore the post said the same thing for both links that were posted.


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## Siwastaja (Aug 1, 2012)

Lipo is not a battery chemistry. Still, lipo may have different environmental qualities compared to "standard" li-ion. OTOH, you cannot know whether a cell marketed as lipo is lipo or not, or what lipo even means. The expert opinions vary. It seems that lipo is becoming a marketing buzzword with no clear meaning anymore (if it ever had one). 
Anyways, back to the topic;

AFAIK, the environmental impact of LiCoO2 and LiFePO4 chemistries are somewhat similar. Some people claim LiFePO4 is a bit more friendly to the environment, but I don't know why. Cobalt is not very nasty stuff.

Basically, there are no strong environmental contaminants comparable to cadmium or lead. _Practically_, they are harmless, at least in minute amounts. It's harder to say any more in detail; opinions vary, batteries vary and thresholds vary. Most of all, regulations vary. It would be safe to say that you are not allowed to dispose of _anything_ in the landfill unless explicitly allowed. The first link seems to take a more practical approach.

I'd still collect used batteries if at all possible. It may prove that a proper recycling option shows up in near future, and it would make sense to recycle the valuable materials (such as copper, lithium and cobalt).

(I work with photochemistry, and while the U.S. legislation would, AFAIK, allow the disposal of most used chemicals through the drain (due to not having more environmental impact than our urine does), the Finnish officials say that if you use a standard dishwasher liquid in a darkroom it becomes hazardous waste. Go figure.)


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

LiCo does have a higher potential for fire than LiFePO4, so that may be the difference. Not so much environmental but handling safety.


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## nimblemotors (Oct 1, 2010)

So no good answer on how/where to recycle these cells?
I have a pile of toasted 20ah pouch cells and don't really think I should put them in the trash. 
They actually hold some juice, 2ah-5ah, perhaps another use for them? Hold some solar power to run my sprinklers??

They are actually pretty heavy if you look at dozens of them. If one where to break them down into the copper and aluminum sheets, would a metal recycler take them?
Copper scrap prices are very high.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

nimblemotors said:


> So no good answer on how/where to recycle these cells?
> I have a pile of toasted 20ah pouch cells and don't really think I should put them in the trash.
> They actually hold some juice, 2ah-5ah, perhaps another use for them? Hold some solar power to run my sprinklers??
> 
> ...


I completely discharge them and short the leads for a few days and then drop them off at the best buy recycling bin. I have also left them at Batteries Plus and Interstate Batteries.

As for recycling them I would hope that at some point you could get something for them. About 1/3 of the weight is the copper and about 1/5th is the aluminum foils. Both are desired by recyclers.


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## jumpjack (Sep 9, 2012)

I read on several Manufacturer Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) that once you "deactivate" a lithium battery by discharging it and submerging it in salt water, you can throw them together with normal waste.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

That would be a waste, (pun intended), since they can be recycled.


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## jumpjack (Sep 9, 2012)

Wasting is better than polluting.
I'm glad I can just trash my old batteries with no damages, until somebody will find a methode to recycle them.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Here is how we dispose of them. Shoot a hole in them with a .22 and throw them in a bucket of water over night to finish them off. Once you blow their heads off and drowned them they are dead, inert, and will never hurt anyone.


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## nimblemotors (Oct 1, 2010)

I tore another pouch cell apart so I could weigh the contents.
A whole cell was 630 grams. The copper sheets were 200 grams, the aluminum sheets where 300 grams, the pouch and separator where 33 grams, so that leaves 100 grams in solvent that evaporated after I disassembled it.
The copper and aluminum includes the coatings, which I did not try to remove.

So roughly 25% is copper


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

jumpjack said:


> Wasting is better than polluting.
> I'm glad I can just trash my old batteries with no damages, until somebody will find a methode to recycle them.



 They can already be recycled.


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## pdove (Jan 9, 2012)

There is nothing toxic in them. A ethyl based electrolyte, aluminum, copper, plastic, lithium salts and graphite.

Throw them in the trash.

The materials are all cheap.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Sure, pay to have them taken away as trash, or recycle them for free.


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