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Japan finds a way to recover 90% of lithium from old EV batteries
(www.techspot.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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Ok it needs to be said. The smart play is to have governments to subsidize this process and build up the raw inventory for lithium. That way, ie (US) could have tons and tons of raw lithium without having to mine it.
Wouldn't it be smarter to use old EV batteries for grid storage?
Why not both? Downcycle the old EV batteries for grid storage, then when they reach the end of useful life, recycle them. We need to resurrect the first 2 R's (Reduce, Reuse) to be able to survive on this planet.
They are listed in order of importance.. reduce first, if you can't, then reuse. If you can't reuse, then recycle.
Problem is, we saw "recycle" and thougt "infinite resources" and ditched the other two.. turns out that most things cant really be recycled, so now it's just landfill all the way
I wish I could remember where I read it, but the focus on just Recycle was encouraged as the main narrative by corporations which didn't want to give up the myth of endless growth.
Not if they are not holding energy any more.
That's great and all, but not all batteries need lithium. When another battery technology gets mature enough to surpass lithium based batteries, then we'll still be stuck on old tech cause the government is subsiding it.
This also reduces the incentive for making more lithium efficient batteries.
Subsidies can help, but they need to be more generalized so they don't create issues moving past current tech. Heck, look at how much trouble we're having getting past oil, that's a perfect example.
Under modern physics, Lithium is pretty much the best possible chemical to build batteries out of. Anything else that might be better won't be a chemical battery, and it's not like there's any reason to suspect some new magic thing will be created like a pocket-size fusion reactor that will make chemical batteries totally obsolete any time soon. Decades more of lithium batteries being relevant are as close to guaranteed as can be.
Depends on how you define "best". Likely the highest possible short-term energy density, yes, but that isn't the only thing we might want out of a battery. "Doesn't catch fire" is one of the areas where the highest-energy lithium battery chemistries are far from the best, for instance.
Lithium's energy density is largely the cause of its flammability - if you accept density and capacity comparable to another battery chemistry, you can get it down to a comparable fire risk, even if there's not much point bothering.
Nickel iron batteries, while heavier and less energy dense have virtually infinite lifespan. As such it is a far better battery for home power walls than lithium.
Me when different solutions are optimal for different goals
Except nickel is fairly rare, driving up the costs. Sodium isn't
Sodium batteries? Of course it depends on their use a bit.
Those are not “better” batteries chemically or electrically. They are just cheaper and don’t use lithium which is considered a feature.
Cheaper is a kind of better.
Cheap, high longevity, high capacity. You can't have all three.
What's better depends on application. I don't want a cheap battery in my car if I only get 80 miles on a charge.
you can get as much range as you want with just making the battery bigger.
Go reread the thread. You're (hopefully unintentionally) arguing against using sodium batteries for grid storage because lithuim has more energy density.
Cost, high longevity, and heat tolerance are way more important for grid storage than energy density. Sodium batteries are perfect for that, and were poised to start being supplied for that application until the price of lithium tanked at the start of the year.
Also, the sodium batteries that are (and were) about to go to market have enough energy density that manufacturers were considering adding them to cars by mixing and matching sodium and lithium cells in varying ratios to match various use cases. The two chemistries aren't mutually exclusive in any field
Sodium battery performance is better in the cold.
Currently some sodium battery products are out in the market and aren't appreciably cheaper yet and the answer to 'why' was 'cold weather performance'.
Sodium batteries are cheaper, safer, and last longer than lithium batteries. That's exactly what you want for grid-scale energy storage. So yes, sodium IS better than lithium for grid-scale energy storage
They are also fine for cars that don't need to have 1000km of range, for some stupid reason.
And you can even mix-and-match cells of both types in a vehicle to better fit a target demographic. It's not simply one or the other.
That being said, it's better to have a car with a 200 mile range sodium battery and a small range extender for that 2-4 times per year trip
That's great for grid storage. Maybe one day for even EV use, emphasis on maybe. But you'll never have a cell phone with a sodium battery
where do people get their science.
And that's why I said it's not happening. These batteries are far too heavy for cell phones. That's an increase in weight I would gladly accept, but I don't expect it to catch on.
Most of the weight in a phone is from the battery so to get an idea find a second cellphone and hold it with yours and that is the new weight. Ironically my cellphone is only 170g. Meaning that just the battery from your article is 2x the weight of my phone. I would gladly carry that for the increased battery life alone, but many will not.
Hope I'm wrong though and we do adopt it, or maybe they figure out how to make these batteries even lighter.
That day is already today. They need better density for digital devices, probably, but with all these advancements, who knows.
Kickstarting new infrastructure is one place government money tends to work well. You can always phase out the subsidies and there is an argument that battery tech benefited from a feedback loop (used in phones until infra and tech was cheap enough for cars+) and something needs to kickstart that for their recycling, government stepping in to start that loop isn't uncommon or as terrible as you seem to be making it out
How is that the perfect example?
Shouldn't it open up the question "why do these subsidies still exist and can we phase them out" not "subsidies are bad"?
I'd rather we get rid of oil subsidies first
Ahh... "rather" reads as a point contrasted to the comment? So what are you expecting comes after questioning why the oil subsidies still exist?
We recover 99% of lead from car batteries. The same lead is used over and over.
Lead is much easier to purify than lithium.
Because we really have not tried.