Why recycle the used batteries

Why recycle the used batteries

Batteries are all over the place, we can see it in all kinds of electronic devices. A laptop battery is an electrochemical device to convert chemical energy to electrical energy to provide power to our electronic devices. The chemical used in battery will pollute the environment heavily if the batteries are improperly disposed of. In this article will show you how to safety disposed and recycled a used battery.

Environmental Hazards of Household Batteries

There are more and more batteries using in our household. A laptop battery is an electrochemical device to convert chemical energy to electrical energy to provide power to our electronic devices. Batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel, which can heavily pollute the environment when batteries are improperly disposed of.

Batteries may produce the following environmental hazards:
Burning the Sony NP-BG1 batteries in public area will pollute the lakes and streams as the metals vaporize into the air when burned and it may cause burns or danger to eyes and skin.

Contribute to heavy metals that potentially may leach from solid waste landfills.

Batteries waste in riverside will pollute the water with strong acid. Animals or human drinking from these water will be harm by the pollution of the water.

What you can do before buying new batteries

So, do you wonder what you can do before buying the new Inspiron 1520 battery to prevent waste and lower the environmental impact of your hand. Here will provide some of the recommendation for you.

Buy batteries that have less mercury and heavy metals. The batteries now are reformulated to reduce the usage of mercury. Some batteries such as the alkaline inspiron 1525 battery have had about a 97 percent mercury reduction in the product. Newer alkaline batteries may contain about one-tenth the amount of mercury previously contained in the typical alkaline battery. Some alkaline batteries have zero-added mercury, and several mercury-free, heavy-duty, carbon-zinc batteries are on the market.

Try to not buy more batteries when you already have enough battery on hand. Most of the people likes to buy more batteries and store it at home but it will not be using in some time. This is a waste and will increase the risk of battery pollution in your house.

Consider using of rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries as inspiron 1300 battery, inspiron b120 battery, inspiron b130 battery has longer life span and use fewer batteries. However rechargeable batteries still contain heavy metals such as nickel-cadmium. When disposing of rechargeable batteries, recycle if possible.

The article is from http://www.squidoo.com/recycle-battery

Battery recycle

Battery recycle

Battery is generally cylindrical in shape with two terminals, one positive electrode and one negative electrode that conduct electricity along with a substance called electrolyte, that works on the electrodes, chemically and help convert into electrical energy. There is a copper wire that connects the two electrodes. Materials that are used in batteries are carbon, alkaline, chlorine, lithium ion, lead, nickel, sodium, silicon, copper, etc.

Batteries are classified into two- Dry cells and wet cells. The wet cell batteries are also termed storage battery ( VGP-BPS5) as they can be recharged as many times as possible. Batteries are also divided as rechargeable and non-rechargeable or disposable batteries. The second type is again termed as primary cells, used till the chemical that produce the electrical current supply is fully consumed, at which point the battery is not needed anymore. These types of batteries are used very commonly in small and portable piece of equipments that drain low current.

The other type is rechargeable or in other words secondary cells that can be “refueled” even after being completely consumed. For recharging, these batteries need some external help from devices as chargers or re-chargers.

In the present world due to the development of science and technology almost everything (papers, plastics, batteries, aluminum, etc.) can be recycled without wasting it by just throwing it after use. Thus we see that recycling is a procedure by which waste products are recovered for reusing, which is also known as waste management.

Laptop Battery recycling falls under electronic waste or e-waste. Here any discarded, broken or unwanted electrical or electronic equipments, containing toxic materials are recycled for further use. Batteries like, nickel-cadmium, lead, lithium batteries are made to reuse as the chemicals present in them can cause harm to the environment if allowed to stay long in open air after being discarded by the users. Moreover batteries are regarded as the most expensive energy source and their production requires much valuable recourse, so they are recycled so as to restore those valuable materials from those old and used batteries through battery recyling.

Cadmium is a heavy metal and can cause pollution if burned or cremated. To avoid lead pollution lead-aced batteries are processed. This program is considered to be highly successful. Lithium-ion can be very dangerous if exposed to high temperature or sunlight, it can ignite or explode. Therefore battery recycling is a must if we want to protect our environment.

The Recycling Process:

First of all, the batteries to be recycled are sorted according to chemistries such as nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride, lithium, alkaline etc. The combustible material, such as plastics and insulation, is then removed with a gas fired thermal oxidizer, which is the first step in the recycling process. Most recycling plants have scrubbers where the gases from the thermal oxidizer are neutralized to remove pollutants, producing clean, naked cells that contain precious metal content.

The metal in the inspiron 6400 batteries are then heated to liquefy, after they have been hacked into little pieces. Black slag left by burned out non-metallic substances are scraped off with a slag arm, and the different alloys that settle according to weight are skimmed off. Some plants pour the liquid metals directly into (65 pounds) or ‘hogs’ (2000 pounds) without separating on site, which are then shipped to metal recovery plants to produce nickel, chromium and iron re-melt alloy for the manufacturing of other metal products.

State and Federal Regulations in the United States:

The Mercury-Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act was passed in 1996 by the U.S. Congress which requires regulated batteries such as Ni-CD batteries and sealed lead-acid batteries to:

1. be easily removable from consumer products to make it easier to recover them for recycling

2. include in the label the battery chemistry, the “three chasing arrows” symbol, and a phrase that instructs users to properly recycle or dispose the battery

3. provide national uniformity in collection, storage, and transport

4. phase out the use of certain mercury-containing batteries

By recycling batteries the environment is not being polluted nearly as much, many natural resources are saved due to the rechargeable laitude d620 batteries also. There is a large variety of websites on the Internet with more quality information on recycling batteries.

Some contents from : http://www.articlesnatch.com and laptop battery blog