Researchers at Rice University tested water-based amino chloride solutions to recover metals from spent lithium-ion batteries. A solution based on hydroxylammonium chloride (HACl) gave the best results in their experiments.
The HACl solution extracted roughly 65% of key battery metals in one minute at room temperature. With slightly longer processing times, efficiencies climbed above 75% for several metals. The method does not need high temperatures or long reaction times, so it can save energy and reduce environmental harm. The team also reprocessed the recovered metals into new battery materials, but it is not yet clear how quickly industry could scale the method.
Difficult words
- recover — get a material back after previous userecovered
- extract — take a substance out of a mixtureextracted
- efficiency — how well a process uses time or energyefficiencies
- room temperature — the temperature inside a normal building
- scale — make a process bigger or produce more
- reprocess — process something again to make it usefulreprocessed
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Discussion questions
- Do you think a method that saves energy for recycling is important? Why?
- How would you decide if a company should use this new recycling method?
- Would you prefer batteries made with reprocessed metals? Why or why not?
