Don’t get me wrong. I know the vehicle itself will have way lower emissions and than a regular gas or diesel vehicle, but what I’m confused on is that they will have to mine to get the raw materials to make these batteries and then once the battery is done it’s lifespan they will need to find a way to dispose or recycle these batteries. Imagine doing that capacity when the whole world has transitioned to EV.
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Former Li-ion battery researcher here:
The materials inside batteries do not escape or get consumed while giving off energy, so all the cobalt, lithium and other materials remain inside the entire time. Also Li Ion batteries are much easier to recycle.
The reason batteries lose their capacity is because too many cycles of lithium ion insertion and removal during discharging and charging respectively, stresses the crystal lattice of the lithium cobalt oxide cathode and then it starts to “flake off” from its electrical contact. At the worst case, the flaked off cathode is just sitting in the electrolyte.
For non solid state Li-ion batteries, the liquid electrolyte is some kind kind of polar solution (similar to alcohol) which can be easily burned off. Because of that you could dump the entire contents of a worn out battery battery into a furnace or kiln and heat it up to recover the materials. Doing that would vaporize the electrolyte, and probably the carbon anode, but it will leave behind the valuable Lithium oxide and cobalt oxide.
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