Old Battery Disposal, Recycling, and Environmental Impact

Putting away used batteries in a proper way is critical. Aging batteries have detrimental effects on the environment when disposed of carelessly. You might have a stack of batteries in your household and wonder how to put them away.

Here is a solution on how you should dispose of your old batteries without negatively affecting the environment. Disposing of batteries is different depending on the type of battery. The way to dispose of a rechargeable battery is not the same for a non-rechargeable battery.

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Lithium Battery Recycling

Lithium batteries are used to power most electronic gadgets. Their applications are rising every day, and with this increment, we will end up with a massive number of used batteries. The used batteries can be used again for other secondary purposes through recycling.

Old batteries pose a significant problem to humans and the environment if mishandled. The batteries are made up of hazardous materials. Recklessly handling old batteries and poor disposal may lead to environmental pollution, fires, and even poisoning among humans.

The surest way of avoiding all the above is by finding a way of recycling the used batteries. Recycling technology has been an area of concern recently to develop an efficient way of recycling old batteries.

Companies globally are trying to develop a way that will help recycle batteries. There are outstanding achievements, but the process has proven difficult because of the highly reactive nature of lithium batteries.

However, the good news is that lithium batteries have been able to be recycled. It is advisable that highly trained voltage specialists only do the recycling of lithium batteries. So how is the recycling of lithium batteries being done? Here are some of the steps done by the professionals to effectively recycle the batteries;

Step 1:The lithium batteries should be disassembled into modules. While dismantling the modules, the specialists usually use insulated tools to avoid short-circuiting.

Step 2:Once disassembling the various parts is done, the cells are examined to come up with the ones that can still be reused.

In many instances, recycling lithium batteries follows two major processes, namely pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy.

The pyrometallurgy process involves smelting battery components by subjecting them to high temperatures. As a result, the battery components burn and separate a mixed metal alloy of copper, cobalt, iron, and nickel.

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On the other hand, hydrometallurgy uses the acidic or basic solution to treat the cathode material, and in the process, the desired metals are recovered.

Battery Pollution

Pollution occurs if the used batteries are disposed of in the wrong way. There are different perspectives we can look at on how pollution occurs.

Emissions to water.?Failure to dispose of the used batteries correctly pollutes the surrounding. Batteries contain toxic metals. Examples of these toxic metals are cadmium, lead, and mercury. Disposing of the batteries on the fields allows the metals to leak out into the soils and might find their way into the rivers, thus polluting the water.

Air pollution.?Many factors may bring the emission of dust particles into the air. One way is through disassembling during the recycling process from a landfill or when a fire explosion occurs. The emissions contain metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, and copper.

Health problems such as cardiovascular and respiratory problems, carcinogenicity, and disruption of the endocrine system are brought about by dust if they enter the respiratory system.

Explosions and fires are another way dust gets released into the atmosphere. Particles and gases get ejected from the vent during heating. In the process, heavy smoke, which is usually black, is produced. Surface dust emanates from this process through cooling down. Interaction of the settled dust with water and soil is harmful to crops.

Lithium Battery Environmental Impact

Environmental conservation is the responsibility of everyone to enable the flora and fauna that depend on it to flourish. The environment can easily be affected negatively by human activities. Lithium is one of the metals that have far-reaching effects on the environment. Some of the negative impacts of lithium on the environment are the following.

Costly to the environment. The production of lithium batteries has far-reaching effects on the environment. The mining of lithium to produce lithium-ion is labor-intensive. Most of the lithium ions cannot be recycled, adversely impacting the environment due to the need to mine more of the metal.

With the increase in the production of lithium batteries, there is a strain on the metals used in mining lithium ions. Heavy mining of metals affects the environment negatively.

Excessive use of water.?The process of extracting lithium uses a lot of water. The other water users, such as animals and human beings, are disadvantaged in areas where lithium mining is undertaken.

During mining, large amounts of water usage may cause the rivers to dry up. Fish that live in water will die because their only habitat is destroyed.

Landfill. The hazard results from biological and chemical degradation processes and the percolation of rain through waste. Pollutants such as heavy metals, electrolyte degradation products, dissolved gases, and additives may be carried away by leachate. The corrosive species in landfills bring acidification which lowers the pH and therefore destroys plants and animals.

Loss of Biodiversity. Water is a valuable resource in the mining of lithium. The mining process requires a lot of water. The drying of rivers characterizes areas where the mining of lithium takes place.

Animals such as flamingoes and fish rely entirely on the water for survival. Plants, too, cannot exist when there is a water shortage. Most of the plants and animals in this ecosystem end up dying due to a lack of water.

It is essential to learn how to dispose of old batteries. The surest and most effective way of disposing of them is by recycling. Reusing lithium batteries is a way of conserving the environment due to the decrease in raw materials required when mining lithium. Water will be conserved when recycling is done, and environmental pollution will be eliminated.