The fix, he told me, was temporary - he didn't have the right part and couldn't get it. This experience revealed a broader shift in how modern products are designed, sold, and owned - one that increasingly treats repair as optional and replacement as inevitable.
Never place batteries of any type in your curbside recycling bin. Batteries can damage recycling equipment and, if lithium batteries are mixed in, cause fires. Always use designated battery collection programs.
The team, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Institute of Technology, recently published their findings in Nature Communications. According to their research, the process not only avoids conventional leaching chemicals and extreme heat to extract lithium from old batteries, but it also uses carbon dioxide in what the authors call a sequestration step, and turns other battery transition metals into new catalysts - with CO₂-rich water doing most of the chemical work.
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are found in many devices we use every day, like smartphones, laptops, tablets, wireless earbuds, power tools, e-bikes, and electric vehicles. By 2023, there were more than 40 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide, and billions of portable electronics used Li-ion cells. These batteries are valuable for recycling, but they can be dangerous if not disposed of correctly.
Connected Energy is developing what it describes as the UK's most advanced second-life EV battery testing facility as part of its first wholly owned and operated battery energy storage system (BESS) site. The project marks a step change in the company's strategy, moving from delivering systems for third parties to owning and operating grid-scale storage assets. The site will be located at Scottow Enterprise Park in Norfolk, close to Connected Energy's technical centre. Alongside its role as a commercial energy storage installation, the facility will be used to test the integration and performance of batteries from multiple electric bus and truck manufacturers.