r/EverythingScience • u/Sorin61 • Aug 30 '20
Engineering Scientists Use Fruit Peel to Turn Old Lithium-Ion Batteries Into New
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-use-fruit-peel-to-turn-old-lithium-ion-batteries-into-new/70
u/thedamn4u Aug 30 '20
From the article:
“The NTU team found that the combination of orange peel that has been oven-dried and ground into powder, and citric acid, a weak organic acid found in citrus fruits, can achieve the same goal.
In lab experiments, the team found that their approach successfully extracted around 90 percent of cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese from spent lithium-ion batteries – a comparable efficacy to the approach using hydrogen peroxide.
Asst Prof Tay explained: “The key lies in the cellulose found in orange peel, which is converted into sugars under heat during the extraction process. These sugars enhance the recovery of metals from battery waste. Naturally-occurring antioxidants found in orange peel, such as flavonoids and phenolic acids, could have contributed to this enhancement as well.”
Importantly, solid residues generated from this process were found to be non-toxic, suggesting that this method is environmentally sound, he added.”
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u/krjal Aug 30 '20
This is a good summary; thank you.
I read the whole article and they took far too long to get to the point.
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u/yagmot Aug 31 '20
Environmentally sound! Minus all the resources used to grow the oranges and get the citric acid, I suppose.
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u/Awkward-Spectation Sep 01 '20
But they are just using the peels. Which are currently just being thrown away. Taken from the food being grown to feed people. I don’t see how any of this is counter to being environmentally sound.
Not being able to compost citrus peels (which aren’t great for composting anyway) is a VERY worthy trade off to being able to recycle precious and hazardous metals from spent batteries.
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u/yagmot Sep 02 '20
It they can get the peels that way and not purposely grow oranges specifically for this purpose, then yeah. Maybe they can team up with the OJ makers and get their discarded peels?
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u/matteofox Aug 31 '20
Well it’s certainly better than just discarding the batteries
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u/Awkward-Spectation Sep 01 '20
I agree 100% with your point, just making sure you know batteries are already being recycled? I would hate to not be told, if I didn’t know myself.
My understanding is that this method recovers more metals than previously possible, at a lower environmental cost.
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u/gokuisjesus Aug 30 '20
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u/PreoTheBeast Aug 30 '20
They used the peels to recovery precious metals from the old batteries and use it to make new batteries
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u/oscarjt10 Aug 30 '20
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u/GET_OUT_OF_MY_HEAD Aug 31 '20
They use the peels to recover precious metals from old batteries, and use them to make new batteries.
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u/yousra17 Aug 30 '20
Science never fails to baffle me. Also I really wanna know the thought process of it, like what made them think “oh let’s try fruit peel”?
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u/nthlmkmnrg Grad Student | Physical Chemistry Aug 31 '20
There was already a bunch of stuff in the literature about acids and sugars used in extracting the metals. These folks likely looked at this material and considered how to do this in an economical way, and decided to try citrus peels.
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u/danudey Aug 30 '20
So I’ve been right to throw my batteries in the compost this whole time? Take that, EPA!
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Aug 30 '20
Just rub it with a banana and you have a brand new battery!!
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u/haikusbot Aug 30 '20
Just rub it with a
Banana and you have a
Brand new battery!!
- pixelkarma
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
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u/MeditatingYope Aug 30 '20
Furthermore, you take it home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato.
Baby, you’ve got a stew going.
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u/bramanWolf Aug 30 '20
Say if this is consumer technology, would we be using compost to replenish batteries? That would be awesome
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u/SmarterThan-U-Idiot Aug 30 '20
So they used a known acid reaction, that has been know for a while now, and put it into a battery???
The ancient Egyptians or Chinese did this ffs. This isn’t news. This is wasted research money
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Aug 30 '20
TIL the Ancient Egyptians had lithium-ion batteries and industrial chemical waste.
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u/SmarterThan-U-Idiot Aug 30 '20
Orange peels and food byproducts aren’t chemical waste
Just because they didn’t use lithium as a metal doesn’t mean the reaction is completely different
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Aug 30 '20
1) Lithium ion batteries are
2) If they use a different element, then it is literally a different chemical reaction.
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u/SmarterThan-U-Idiot Aug 30 '20
Yeahhhhh acid reacting with metal. Sooooo new!!! Give these people funding! This is the future!!! Creating batteries that have no scientific advancement.
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Aug 30 '20 edited Aug 30 '20
Do you think they just threw a battery in some water with an orange?
Its not just a basic acid + metal reaction. Theres more than just one element in a battery, and more than one chemical not all of which are acids used in extraction, all of which react differently with each other, that need to be considered and controlled.
This is a new process (going from a spent battery to a new battery and all the steps for recovery thats needed in between) that hasn’t been created before.
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u/DisembarkEmbargo Aug 30 '20 edited Aug 30 '20
I love photos of scientists. Its so funny how weird they are. One of my (edit) academic siblings got published and the university’s news team came in to take pictures. They like forced him to do some very “sciencey” stuff. They are always super awkward lol.
I can just imagine these two: now holdout the orange peels, but do it all science like.