Welcome to Boardsort™ - Learn - Sell - Profit -

Learn to properly Sort, Sell, and Profit from your electronic scrap material.
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 3:26 am


Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 7 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:54 pm 
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
Posts: 9752
Location: Low DOS
So, here’s the big project:

I’ve been working on looking into an automation process for the recycling of both dry cell canister batteries and canister capacitors.

Batteries are currently recycled by very select companies around the country. It’s a net loss value process at the moment due to labour.

You have a plastic or foil wrapper.
A steel or aluminium shell.
Potentially an inner shell.
The chemicals and the solid metals inside.
The top and bottom terminals
All of this crimped into a shell during production
I was triggered with the idea watching a short on a company that decrimped expired food cans to recover the food for composting.

Capacitors are quite similar. Plastic, foils, and chemicals.

Now, with batteries, the internal chemicals can be turned into fertiliser.
Something companies have been doing for quite some time despite coverage only being recent.

So my project goal was looking at a system that would basically unbuild a battery in reverse of the manufacturing process.
As for capacitors.
Well the plastic and foil could be recycled. The actual chemicals refined and reused.
Same method of unbuilding.

The automation takes out the labour costs and thus makes the process close to cost neutral if not positive.

I’ve kept this close to my chest until I could file a patent. I didn’t want this to end up locked into any one company.
If I can find someone to charity invest in the idea with open licensing, and it actually works (it should), this could save all those batteries! Make them help the environment!

As I’ve always said: anything man can make man can unmake.
The challenge is doing so without loosing money.

_________________
42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 11:24 pm 

Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:44 pm
Posts: 1138
Location: I'm right here :D
Has anyone voiced any interest?

Out of curiosity if you're willing to share, (may show my lack of knowledge on this...) is this like AA, AAA, C, D batteries? What about coin cell from all our motherboards? Any others I'm not thinking of? All chemistries or only specific ones (alkaline/lithium/etc.)?

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2022 12:15 am 
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
Posts: 9752
Location: Low DOS
Interest? Yes. A few responses.

My immediate trials are on canister batteries.


Button cells (excluding silver and mercury) should be fairly easy to automate. Just not really done yet for some reason. They’re made of two pieces, one folded and crimped over the other.
So reversing the process should be nothing more than a toothed gear and compression roller, the gear week having just the right pressure to decrimp.

Round canisters, on the other hand have multiple parts to the housing alone. Knowing that would be more difficult it was my choice to start there.

As a side note, cube and brick (think lantern) batteries are surprisingly easy to unmake.

_________________
42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 12:05 am 

Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:44 pm
Posts: 1138
Location: I'm right here :D
lostinlodos wrote:
As a side note, cube and brick (think lantern) batteries are surprisingly easy to unmake.

Been awhile since I've seen any of these.

Wish I were in a better spot financially, might could throw some half dollars your way. :D I'd love to see batteries (and a lot of other things) get recycled more.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 1:04 am 
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
Posts: 9752
Location: Low DOS
Non-lithium (and non-nuclear lol) 3F, lantern, batteries can be disassembled with a home decrimper. Used to open cans without cutting scrap.
I started with that!

What sparked this project was the (because of covid) response from a yard I haven’t used in the past telling me, falsely, that alc batteries can’t be recycled in the steel process.

I’ve been dissecting car batteries for as long as my scrap memory goes back. I use the free acid in various metals projects. The plastic cases get a few cents a pound. And the lead plates pay well enough

I know and constantly post on the dangers of mishandling lithium. A dry cell battery a third the size of a young girls metal watch band link blew me off my feet and left a nice burn crater in my wooden work bench.
Pictures posted a few hundred times around this site.

That interaction plus prior interest in DCL coin batteries and their trapped but useless dead cell energy lead me to thinking.

Most batteries have at least 8 recoverable materials. Each worth good money.
I currently pay a company that manually dissects batteries to creat scrap metal and plastic, and fertiliser.
I BUY their fertiliser for my yearly veggie garden. Tomatoes for mum. Super spicy pepper hybrids for me. And it works. I’ve set local size records on things like the mild poblano at 22”, to ghost peppers larger than golf balls. And Diablos that exceeded 6 ounces.
But…

They do it manually!
Then I thought: how glass soda bottles are reused. Belts and blades. Water. Remove labels, flush and clean, relabel and done.
How they are manufactured. Crimping cylinders.

So I fired up my old cad program and made some designs.
Had a free trial offer so I used Google’s AI system to create inter-frames (deep fakes?) between drawn ideas. Ram the whole thing through blender for a video, dumped it to AHIF and , oh crap! It’s doable!

Oh, and after initial expense—likely energy self sustainable.
Oxidation creates heat. Heat heats water to a boil. Boiling water makes steam. Steam creates pressure! Pressure drives equipment!

Etc. Oxides can be sold to the recycling process as well!

In waste management terms, this isn’t even expensive! A few million total would create a system in purchased property, and hold on long enough to become self sustaining.
Once running the only cost is on running out of supply. Which would necessitate a stoppage and a start from 0 energy requirement.


Bingo. Recycling, scrap, fertiliser, green, greener, greennissmasterusmaximus!

_________________
42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:25 pm 

Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:42 pm
Posts: 227
Location: Troy, NY
Lost,

I have access to investors and know some folks with deep pockets, if you would like to discuss further.
Also, my neighbor is a patent lawyer and very nice fellow, he would probably help you file, if you havn't already, for free or close to it, less the cost of the filing. I've had talks with him before on an improved handheld wire stripper for stripping whole lengths of wire and not just ends, like a majority of whats on the market now.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:38 pm 
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
Posts: 9752
Location: Low DOS
All ears! And you have my email.

I’m not interested in making money from it either and would wave rights at the proper time.
I just want to see it built.

I know that most of the ideas I’ve come up with will work because I physically made a system to do it small scale.

It’s the build-out and automation stuff where I turn over designs to someone smart. ;)

I also know of a few companies that would be interested in the results with a complete system that works and runs.

Right now batteries are a loss commodity for most types. Full automation could flip it into major values.

_________________
42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 7 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to: