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Machine Makes Short Work of Battery Recycling

For everyone who recycles their batteries, good for you! Your efforts won't be wasted, at least not in Sweden and the U.K., where a machine with artificial intelligence is being developed to sort all of those batteries so they can be sold for their still-usable components.

The machine, built by Claes Strannegard, an artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, has a camera and a computerized brain that runs on a neural network. That kind of system works more like a human brain in that it can learn to "see" patterns and respond to them. It's an ability that's important for sorting batteries, which come in a range of different sizes and shapes and contain materials, such as lead, cadmium and steel, that need to be distinguished from one another because they're valuable for resale.

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Brain in a Dish Flies Plane

At the recycling plant, batteries are fed to the machine on a conveyor belt. Its camera takes images of the batteries and its brain compares them to other batteries it has seen before. The machine may then send rechargeable "AA" batteries in one direction and single-use "AAA" batteries with steel casings in another direction.

The machine can recognize 2,000 different kinds of batteries and identify them in just milliseconds -- much faster than a human. And it can produce real-time information about how many batteries of a given type -- rechargeable or not, AAAs or Ds -- are being processed. This helps the recycling plant operator better manage the inventory that can eventually be resold.

The machine works differently from conventional mechanized sorters that scan for bar codes or color and are unable to discern a battery if it's dinged, dirty, dented or scuffed.

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The battery-sorting machine was developed by Optisort, and so far, the company has delivered two machines -- one to Renova in Gothenburgand one to G & P Batteries in the U.K., which is sorting one-third of the country’s recycled batteries.

Maybe Skynet will be a sanitation worker rather than a general.

Via University of Gothenburg

Credit: University of Gothenburg

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Are Batteries Bad for the Environment?

The wireless world we live in runs on batteries.

That fancy smart phone is nothing more than a few ounces of dead weight in your pocket without a charged battery. That iPod can’t utter a sound when its battery drains the last drop. Even laptop power cords feel like restrictive leashes, holding us back from joining the mobile mayhem.

But are we paying a high environmental price for all of this battery-operated convenience?

“Rechargeable batteries can contain metals that may be harmful to the environmental if not disposed of properly,” said Carl Smith, CEO of Call2Recycle, a rechargeable battery collection program operated by the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation. “So, it’s better to keep them out of landfills.”

Since Congress passed the Mercury-Containing Battery Management Act in 1996, most disposable alkaline batteries contain little or no mercury. As a result, they’re considered nontoxic enough to toss out with the household trash.

Rechargeable batteries are greener on the production end since they last for hundreds of cycles over many years. However, the toxic metals required to make them – cadmium, cobalt, lead – aren’t kind to the Earth.

When rechargeable batteries degrade in landfills, heavy metals can taint the surrounding air, topsoil and groundwater, eventually getting inside our bodies.

WATCH VIDEO: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have figured out how to track trash. They are doing this to get a better sense of people's disposal habits, which they hope will improve recycling efforts.

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For that reason, Call2Recycle and similar programs are working to train consumers to recycle their cell phone, laptop, digital camera and other rechargeable batteries. Those heavy metals can actually be reused to make more batteries, reducing the need to mine for new resources.

“We recycle every bit of the batteries we collect, regardless of chemistry, and use their byproducts to make new products, including batteries and stainless steel items,” Smith said.

In fact, since its environmental footprint has become a major concern within the battery industry, researchers have begun searching for alternative materials to fuel the electrochemical cells.

“We take into account environmental impact because there is, to a significant degree, a battery recycling industry out there, [and] there are now conferences that deal with nothing but environmental impact and recycling of used batteries,” said Elton Cairns, a rechargeable battery and fuel cell expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

“So that’s very much an industrial concern and a concern for many researchers in choosing the electrode materials and the electrolytes that they study and develop.”

For example, phosphate materials are starting to show up in more lithium-ion batteries that power devices including laptops and cell phones. The phosphate serves as a substitute for heavy metal nickel and cobalt elements. 

But substituting toxic battery components for gentler ones isn’t always an equal energy trade-off, which is a major reason why creating “green batteries” is a tough proposition.

“Phosphate-based materials, though safer and more environmentally benign, are at somewhat of a disadvantage compared to the oxide-based materials in terms of specific energy,” Cairns told Discovery News.

Without an eco-friendlier alternative to batteries, recycling rechargeables is the best way consumers can prevent those heavy metals from leeching into the environment and help green the battery production cycle.

Cairns points to the success of recycling programs in the automotive battery industry. Lead-acid car batteries are one of the most commonly recycled rechargeables, which has not only kept lead out of the waste stream but also reduced the demand for lead mining since around 80 percent of the lead in the new car batteries is a recycling byproduct.

By doing the same with the smaller lithium-ion, button cell and nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries in our household products and portable electronic devices, cadmium, cobalt, nickel and other heavy metals also can be reused in new batteries.

It just depends on consumers taking initiative and getting them to the appropriate battery recycling drop-off sites.

“If we can recycle tin cans and plastic bottles and all that, why can’t we recycle batteries?” Cairns said.

Credit: iStockphoto

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Olympic Medals Made from E-Waste

For the first time, Olympians will be wearing medals that contain gold, silver and copper recovered from old electronics. The metal supplier, Teck Resources, recycled household appliances, electronics and cables and recovered metals from computer parts and circuit boards through smelting. The 2010 Olympic medals are the largest and heaviest medals to date with e-waste material making up the following percentages in each one:

• Gold Medal: 1.52 percent recovered gold
• Silver Medal: 0.122 percent recovered silver
• Bronze Medal: 1.11 percent recovered copper

I thought it was also interesting that the 2010 Olympic Medals are also the first non-flat medals. They are wavy to represent the waves of the ocean and mountain snow drifts.

There's a nice article on CNN about recycle metal for the Olympic medals and a short video on Discovery Channel Canada.

AP Photo/Charlie Krupa