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Disposing of dead LiFePO4 cells

alanlaing

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Nov 21, 2019
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What have folks been doing to get rid of dead LiFePO4 cells when they are dead? I an in Redwood City CA and tried my local recycling place (Recology) and they would not take them. They did give me a few phone numbers but those did not get me anywhere. Google searches lead you to sites that say Home Depot is the local place to do it but I brought some cells in and they said they would not take them.

A lot of places online that claim to recycle them seem to be set up for businesses and they want money for the servce.

These are 50 ah TopBand cells (the aluminum ones wrapped in blue plastic. I acquired a lot of these but there were a few dead ones in the lot so 'u have abut 35 of them.
 
When the day comes and no place will take the prismatic cells in the dumpster they go, but that still is long ways away unless there's a mishap along the way.;)
 
I think the problems at the moment are that even while li cells are just as recyclable as LA are there just isn't enough volume for the recycling industry to want to know about it, plus they are completely unfamiliar with safely handling li while the decades of recycling LA makes hacking them up etc fully understood.
 
Best Buy has a battery recycling container out front in every store I have been in.
 
I would be mighty interested in seeing a dead LiFePO4 "reused" in the form of a "lets see what is inside" video. Disposing of "the results" might be a bigger problem though.
 
@alanlaing: Before throwing them away: Can you experimentally determine the maximum torque of a bolt into the terminal at the state where the aluminium thread strips, without the tip of the bolt touching the hole bottom? Preferably using a well-specified stainless steel bolt at known engagement depth and with degreased contact surfaces and take some pictures? That would be awesome.

See also: here on this forum
 
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I brought a ton of old LFP cells to my local Yolo County CA electronics/battery/chemical waste management place and they took them all just fine. They even had a guy in a white lab coat who was familiar with Lithium cells, didn't have any objections in taking them in.
In the past years when I lived near Tampa FL, I did the same thing and had no issues.
Honestly, when you see how they pile up old lead acid batteries, with cracked cases, acid spilling, corrosion everywhere, you realize that dry lithium cells are the least of our problems :eek:

I think the problem is trying to find a commercial place to take them, since they have no revenue model for these cells, so you have to take them to local county's waste management, same way you dispose of household chemicals and electronics.
 
I have heard of the local recycling depot here not taking bulk lithium batteries because they don't have anywhere to send them so they get hurled off the edge of the general waste transfer pit where a guy in a dozer flattens everything before its grappled onto trucks for transport to a large hole in the ground.
 
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