Recycle Old Batteries-Best Buy, Solar Cells, and Homemade

If you've ever set out to declutter your house and get out of a lot of old stuff, you'll almost certainly come across a lot of old batteries. About everything in our house uses batteries of some kind, from our TV remotes to our kids' toys, and when they're no longer usable, we chuck them to the side or into a random drawer somewhere.

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Is it possible to recycle batteries, and if so, how can they be done? Recycling batteries is feasible and encouraged as long as you obey the rules in your state. Batteries are hazardous to human health and must be appropriately disposed of, but they also contain many essential metals, making them dream recyclable and anything that can be made and reused again and again.

Whether you've discovered many batteries when decluttering your home or want to know how to recycle old batteries at best or recycle old batteries to solar cells, this guide is totally for you. 

Let's dive in:   

Recycle Old Batteries Best Buy

It's all too tempting to overlook dead batteries concealed in a cabinet or chuck them out with the trash. They do, however, bear a lot of weight these days when it comes to recycling responsibly.

Call2Recycle Inc, North America's largest consumer battery organization and a Best Buy recycling partner, collected a record-breaking 12.6 million pounds of batteries in 2015 alone from thousands of drop-off sites around the country. According to the group, this is just a tiny portion of what could be collected if more people were aware of the battery recycling options.

"Batteries power our everyday lives and common gadgets, but they don't last forever, so they should be recycled when they no longer carry a charge," says Linda Gabor, VP of Marketing and Customer Service at Call2Recycle. "By taking the time to recycle them responsibly, we keep batteries out of landfills and parts out of landfills."

Rechargeable batteries commonly used in laptops, digital cameras, game consoles, MP3 players, tablets, and phones can be easily disposed of using collection bins located in any Best Buy big box store. Battery backups (UPS) and buttons, cellphones, laptops, and rechargeables fall into this category.

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When the batteries are collected from Best Buy locations, Call2Recycle sends them to its providers to be sorted by form and chemistry. They are then routed to reputable processors. You can use recycled materials in new items such as stainless-steel eating utensils and golf clubs and fresh batteries.

Recycle Old Batteries Into Solar Cells

This may be a tried-and-true win scenario: Researchers at MIT suggested a method that recycled materials from discarded car batteries — a possible source of lead waste — into new, long-lasting solar panels that produce free power without emitting any pollutants.

Prof. Angela M. Belcher and Paula T. Hammond, student Po-Yen Chen, and three others co-authored the journal Energy and Environmental Science that describes the method. It's built on a new advancement in solar cells that uses a compound called perovskite — specifically, organolead halide perovskite — a technique that's quickly advanced from early trials to a point where its performance is almost comparable to that of other forms of solar cells. 

Belcher, the W.M. Keck Prof. of Energy at MIT, states, "It went from original demonstrations to excellent wins in less than two years." Perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have now attained a power-conversion efficiency of over 19%, comparable to many consumer silicon-based solar cells.

Perovskite solar cells can also make in a relatively simple and environmentally friendly manner. According to Belcher, "it has the benefit of being a low-temperature operation, and the number of steps is reduced" compared to traditional solar cell manufacturing.

According to Chen, these elements would make it "safe to get to a massive scale quickly”:

1. Battery Pileup Ahead

One reason for reusing lead from old car batteries is that battery technology is rapidly changing, with newer, more powerful models, such as lithium-ion batteries, quickly gaining market share. “As battery technology advances, over 200 million lead-acid batteries may be withdrawn in the United States, potentially causing a slew of environmental issues,” Belcher says.

Today, she claims that 90 per cent of the lead recovered from old batteries is used to make new batteries, but the demand for new lead-acid batteries is expected to decrease over time, possibly leaving a massive stockpile of lead with no apparent application.

The lead-containing coating in a finished solar panel will be entirely encapsulated by other materials, as is the case for many solar panels today, reducing the possibility of lead contamination of the environment. When the panels are decommissioned, the lead will easily be recycled into new solar panels.

“The procedure for encapsulating them would be the same as it is now for polymer cells,” Chen says. “That technology is easily translatable.”

“In large-scale energy systems, it is important that we understand the life cycles of the materials,” Hammond says. “And here, we assume the approach's simplicity bodes well for commercial implementation.”

2. Old Lead is as Good as New

Belcher hopes that other photovoltaics researchers will adopt the recycled perovskite solar cells, which can now fine-tune for optimum performance. The team's work clearly shows that lead recovered from old batteries is just as good as a freshly manufactured metal for developing perovskite solar cells.

Some companies are already preparing for commercial production of perovskite photovoltaic panels, which would otherwise necessitate the development of new lead sources. Since this can expose miners and smelters to toxic fumes, the team believes that introducing recycling instead could provide immediate benefits.

Yang Yang, a materials science and engineering prof at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in this study, says, "Wow, what a fascinating article that transforms waste from one into a worthy resource for another!" He believes the work is shown here will address a significant problem of industrial waste and provide a solution for potential renewable energy."

Can you recycle old batteries?

Yes, you can recycle old rechargeable lithium, lithium-ion, and zinc-air batteries. Rechargeable batteries used in household products such as cameras, mobile phones, computers, and power tools, in addition to "traditional" rechargeable batteries such as AAs or AAAs, can also be recycled.

So, there you have it; 

Batteries and all other forms of waste that may add chemicals to the environment must be treated with safety, especially when recycling is involved. Hopefully, the above guide helped to dig out the answers and enrich your knowledge!!