Waste materials: Recycling worn-out batteries from electric cars produces a mix of finely shredded metals, consisting of cobalt, aluminum, nickel, and copper (show on the left), and a slurry that is processed into a cobalt cake (on the right).

As more and more products concern about environment friendly, one of the best energy solutions is using batteries. So the batteries will be used in large-scale now and much more in the future.

Shrewd businessmen will be soon aware of the opportunities inside the implication. Battery recycling industry and battery consumption industry are complementary industries. Experts predict that lithium battery recycling will get a boost. The US Department of Energy has granted $9.5 million to a company in California that plans to build America’s first recycling facility for lithium-ion vehicle batteries.

Experts say that having a recycling infrastructure in place will ease concerns that the adoption of vehicles that use lithium-ion batteries could lead to a shortage of lithium carbonate and a dependence on countries such as China, Russia, and Bolivia, which control the bulk of global lithium reserves. “Right now it hardly pays to recycle lithium, but if demand increases and there are large supplies of used material, the situation could change,” says Linda Gaines, a researcher at the Argonne National Laboratory’s Transportation Technology R&D Center.
This can be seen as a beginning, the more action will be taken in the future. If you take the chance, you can make big profits.

Waterproof power: This protective casing envelops a functioning lithium-metal battery electrode, excluding water but letting lithium ions pass. It’s part of a prototype battery made by PolyPlus Battery of Berkeley, CA.

Also good news in battery industry: IBM Research is beginning an ambitious project that it hopes will lead to the commercialization of batteries that store 10 times as much energy as today’s within the next five years. The company will partner with U.S. national labs to develop a promising but controversial technology that uses energy-dense but highly flammable lithium metal to react with oxygen in the air. The payoff, says the company, will be a lightweight, powerful, and rechargeable battery for the electrical grid and the electrification of transportation.

IBM is pursuing the risky technology instead of lithium-ion batteries because it has the potential to reach high enough energy densities to change the transportation system, says Chandrasekhar Narayan, manager of science and technology at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, in San Jose, CA. “With all foreseeable developments, lithium-ion batteries are only going to get about two times better than they are today,” he says. “To really make an impact on transportation and on the grid, you need higher energy density than that.” One of the project’s goals, says Narayan, is a lightweight 500-mile battery for a family car. The Chevy Volt can go 40 miles before using the gas tank, and Tesla Motors’ Model S line can travel up to 300 miles without a recharge.

There’s a chance that this could work for other USB devices (maybe an iPhone too, but I don’t have one), but there’s also a chance that this could fry your device, car, or perhaps eat all of the cheese in the house. If you’re not confident, or not competent, you probably don’t want to try this. I accept no responsibility for any bad things happening.

Step1 Bits need

You shouldn’t need more than the fairly standard soldering tools, a multimeter, and a couple of resistors (not shown) — I grabbed a couple of SMT resistors from an old CDROM drive.

 If you want the very simple steps without any instructions, all I did was connect a 27k Ohm resistor from V+ (Pin 1) to D- (Pin 2), then another 12k Ohm between D- and D+ (Pin 3). Dead easy.

Step2 Open the charger

You need to disassemble the charger (actually you could probably do this in a USB extension cable, but I didn’t want any more clutter).

Take the fuse and cap out. Then you need to split the charger open. Mine was welded together so I had to saw through both sides of the case and then lever it open. Don’t cut too deep with the saw or you’ll end up going through the components of the charging circuit.

Step3 Add the resistors

You need to add two resistors. You should do a continuity test first to determine if your two central pins are connected to any others. If they are, you’ve likely got a different charger and this probably won’t work.

According to the USB charging and power spec I should be able to simply short the two central pins (the data lines) and the device will detect that it’s connected to a charging device and start charging.

I tried this first of all, but it didn’t work (the iPod detected it had been plugged in to something, but refused to charge). I knew the iPod charged from my MintyBoost!, and after a quick look at the schematic and some playing with the multimeter, I decided it would be worthwhile adding a couple of pull-up resistors.

I don’t think the values are that vital (the USB spec is quite forgiving), but I decided to try matching roughly what the MintyBoost! was giving, apart from the V+ to D- resistor, which was guesswork.

Don’t forget to check that you’ve got the correct resistance between the pins, and that they’re not connected to anything they shouldn’t be!

Step4 Test and rejoice

After reassembly I tested the charger with a device I didn’t care about — in this case a broken DG-100 GPS datalogger — to check nothing (useful) exploded.

Next I tried all three iPods I could get my hands on. Success!

I wrapped the charger with duct tape to complete that “finished” look.

Astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn replaced the first of four 375-pound batteries in a spacewalk that could take nearly eight hours, NASA said.

Photo provided by NASA

The replacement mission was cut short Wednesday after carbon dioxide levels rose in Cassidy’s suit. The lithium hydroxide canister that scrubs carbon dioxide from the suit was replaced for Friday’s walk, NASA officials said in a release.

The astronauts are replacing four Port 6 truss batteries with batteries designed to last more than six years and 38,000 charges. Each new battery measures 40 inches by 36 inches by 18 inches and weighs 375 pounds.

The International Space Station is powered by a photovoltaic system that gathers solar power and stores it in the Port 6 batteries.

The image obtained from NASA

That made for a long, hand-over-hand trek for the spacewalkers, taking them about as far as they could get from the hatch leading back into the orbiting outpost, about 150 feet. “Take your time,” the astronauts urged each other.

These batteries are critical, storing the power collected by the space station’s solar wings. The old batteries were launched in 2000. NASA is uncertain how long those original batteries might last and wants new ones installed before the old ones die.

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Currently, the electronics require a large amount of energy to operate. And to meet this voracious consumption, nothing is more practical than dry batteries and batteries charger. When the energy ends, you simply take your rechargeable dry battery and put it in the charger and that’s it: it is ready to be used again. In addition, rechargeable dry batteries last more than common dry batteries -from 2 to 4 times. And they have been developed to be used in equipments such as digital cameras, some GPSs etc..

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And the industry of battery manufacturer has bright prospects for the future. It is reported that India’s leading dry cell battery manufacturer Eveready Industries is eyeing a growth of 10 percent in 2009-10.

Referred to dry cell batteries, they are common things in our daily lives. I would like to remind everyone to pay attention to the classification of used batteries. I think we’d better choose to use rechargeable batteries. It is economical and environmentally friendly.

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What are the kinds of charger?

There are various types and capabilities in the market. The charger is connected to the type of batteries for which it was designed. Most of the dry batteries are rechargeable NiMH (nickel-metal hydride). Until recently, it was also common in NiCd batteries (nickel-cadmium). The NiMH offers a much larger capacity, and it can be found in both small size (AA) and (AAA).

How do I choose a charger?

The correct choice of the charger is very important to the health of rechargeable batteries. It must be compatible with the carrying capacity of the battery. Give preference to the acquisition of the charger / battery together, as a charger with different time load cell can damage it.

A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle. The term most commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), which combine an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors.

Ford Escape Hybrid the first hybrid electric SUV and first hybrid electric vehicle with a flexible fuel capability to run on E85

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional propulsion system with a rechargeable energy storage system (RESS) to achieve better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle. Its secondary propulsion system, additional to the electric motors, means that it does not require regular visits to a charging unit as a battery electric vehicle (BEV) does.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s hybrids now use nickel-metal hydride batteries. The world’s largest automaker said last month it will use for the first time lithium-ion batteries for its plug-in hybrid cars.

So the question is, what makes these batteries so energetic and so popular?

Lithium-Ionen-Accumulator

Lithium-ion batteries are popular because they have a number of important advantages over competing technologies:

• They’re generally much lighter than other types of rechargeable batteries of the same size. The electrodes of a lithium-ion battery are made of lightweight lithium and carbon. Lithium is also a highly reactive element, meaning that a lot of energy can be stored in its atomic bonds. This translates into a very high energy density for lithium-ion batteries.
• They hold their charge. A lithium-ion battery pack loses only about 5 percent of its charge per month, compared to a 20 percent loss per month for NiMH batteries.
• Lithium-ion batteries can handle hundreds of charge/discharge cycles.

Using a lithium-ion battery will produce more energy, allowing hybrid cars to run more as an electric vehicle, but there have been some technological hurdles.