Lithium batteries (including Lithium-ion batteries) have become omnipresent in modern life, powering everything from smartphones and laptops to electric cars and energy storage systems. These rechargeable batteries offer high energy density, long cycle life, and low self-discharge, making them ideal for a wide range of applications. However, like all batteries, lithium batteries have a limited lifespan and eventually need to be replaced. 
Why Lithium Battery should be Recycled?
Irresponsible battery disposal is dangerous! Recycling these batteries is essential for several reasons, including reducing the environmental impact of disposal, recovering valuable materials, and reducing the demand for new materials.
When lithium batteries and lithium-powered electronics are disposed of in landfills, they can easily break open and leach toxic chemicals into the environment. These chemicals are extremely dangerous for humans, plants, and animals to come in contact with. Not to mention, they may catch fire or explode if not handled properly! Unfortunately, these deadly toxins usually end up in our water supply and are consumed by the local fish and wildlife. This is why lithium-ion batteries should be sent to certified electronics recycling facilities to extract the chemicals safely.
Lithium batteries contain valuable critical minerals. These raw materials are economically important for the world and include:Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese. What makes these elements "critical minerals" is their difficulty to be found and mined. In other words, they have a high supply risk potential. Furthermore, they cannot be easily substituted with other naturally-occurring minerals.
How Lithium-Ion Batteries are Recycled
Of course, because of the high reactivity of lithium, recycling requires many steps and extra precautions for safety. But recycling also involves a lot of energy and often a lot of water to complete, which can be costly and hard to scale up sustainably. While scientists are looking to the balance between the minimization of environmental impact and cost of lithium-ion battery recycling, for now, the common recycling steps may include:
Consumer electronics, batteries, and battery-containing devices are collected by the retailer who sold the replacement item, by a storefront e-waste collector, or by a business that specializes in collecting other companies’ used electronics.
Some battery packs or modules may also be evaluated for repair or reuse—either being put back into a device similar to their original one or being repurposed in a different type of product or application.
The batteries are either discharged to remove electricity before this step or are otherwise managed to prevent fires during shredding. Many battery recyclers are also accepting battery materials in the form of manufacturing scrap for processing. Shredding the battery means cutting down the battery into smaller pieces with large, metal blades.
The shredding operation creates a number of different streams, including the following:
The remaining “black mass” of battery pieces will either be smelted or leached for materials recovery. Although innovations are happening quickly in lithium-ion battery recycling, currently there are two main methods to recover the metals out of black mass:
A heat-based smelting process (pyrometallurgy).
A liquid-based leaching process (hydrometallurgy).
Whether the battery goes through a smelting or leaching process, the recovered materials are then reprocessed to make a new product using recycled materials.
Lithium-Ion Battery Reuse
Reuse and repurposing are two similar, environmentally friendly alternatives to recycling or disposal of a lithium-ion battery that no longer meets its user’s needs or is otherwise being discarded. Battery performance degrades over time, but used batteries can still provide useful energy storage for other applications. For example, an electric vehicle battery that no longer holds enough energy to cover the range its owner desires could be reused as an electric vehicle battery for someone who requires less range from their vehicle, or it could be repurposed into a battery for storing energy from solar panels.
All Sunpack's products don't contain used batteries or repurposed batteries, and we use A-grade battery cells to make energy storage batteries and power batteries.
