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.

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.