Lfp recycling, UK

Does anyone have an easy disposal solution for end of life cells here in the UK? I’ve got 18x calb 210aH that are shot and need to go for recycling/disposal.

They’re all puffed up something chronic and are ready for the scrap bin. 2010 date codes so they haven’t done bad.

I've not tried to recycle lithium cells, but I have used EMR for lead acid who always paid decent prices, and it looks like they do car batteries, so maybe call them:

https://uk.emrgroup.com/find-out-more/latest-news/battery-recycling-in-the-uk


There's also these guys, don't know anything about them though, maybe they'll charge you!?:
https://www.lithiumbatteryrecycling.co.uk/

I’ve got waste matters coming down sometime this year to deal with some chemicals off this site so I might just make it their problem. I’ve also got the wet Nicad recyclers coming down, they might also be interested in taking them on, I’m paying enough to have the 4.5 tons of nicads recycled.

Either way, I don’t think my local lead acid place will take them.

HughF said:

Either way, I don’t think my local lead acid place will take them.

Click to expand...

My local ones in the US don't. From what I've seen they (begrudgingly) take a few cordless tool batteries from homeowners but if you are a factory or big contractor that is regularly filling up 5g bucket worth of batteries they will charge you.

I've been trying to keep an eye on how LFP (all things lithium) is going to be recycled and the best I can tell there's really no decent process for it.
From what I've gathered there's two processes and both are REALLY nasty for the environment and there ratio of energy in to reusable raw materials out is terrible.

pyrometallurgy - which to my non-scientific mind sure sounds like a fancy for word for burning something up then sifting through what's left over for something that still needs to be refined before it can be reused.

hydrometallurgy - also sounds really nasty but instead of heat a fluid is used to attempt to produce a slurry that then has to to... you guessed it... a pyrometallurgy process.

I'm not even sure it's should called recycling. It's like burning your entire house to the ground to get a few pounds copper wire.

If anyone knows different please jump in here and help me because I really want to be wrong about this.

I’ve just remembered that I have a weee skip on site still, I’ll just toss them in there. I’ve paid for it, might as well use it.