Gearhead_Shem_Tov
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Recycling a car battery
My 'maintenance free' car battery karked it yesterday.
As far as I can tell, I can get roughly $6AU for the dead battery from a scrap yard here in South Australia. After I schlepp it to the scrap yard.
I'm thinking instead I will salvage what I can from it, the acid, the plates, the terminals. Perhaps I could even rebuild it in a (deeper) acid-proof
container to make an old-timey "accumulator" like they show in "electrical experiments for boys"-type books from the early 20th century.
Has anyone tried doing any of these things? I'd be curious what your experience has been.
-Bobby
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VSEPR_VOID
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Those batteries may be high in D2O
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
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Melgar
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I'd imagine that the main danger comes from the fact that it's mostly lead by mass. And that lead is probably going to be in the form of gunk that's
all over the inside, if it doesn't work anymore. I'm pretty sure that the lead in car batteries has quite a bit of zinc in it, and possibly other
metals too. That might need to be dealt with somehow. Don't bother trying to salvage the acid, it's like 20% H2SO4 that's going to have all sorts of
shit dissolved in it.
Really, you should assume that the only thing of value you'll be able to salvage from it is lead metal, so make sure you know how to separate that
from everything else, and how to convert lead oxides and sulfate into lead metal. The rest will have to be disposed of as hazardous waste, properly.
Most countries have certain days during the year where individuals can turn in hazardous waste for free, to prevent them from throwing it out in the
regular garbage, I assume Australia does too.
It's probably a good idea to get some lead test strips, just to test anything that might have been contaminated with lead salts. They're
available online, and at hardware stores, where they're used for testing old paint when doing remodeling projects.
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diddi
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the Pb is contaminated with Sb, which improves hardness (esp for the terminals) it is a shit job that stains everything dark brown and the yield is
very low because it is in the discharged state. converting all the Pb ions back to Pb from insoluble mess is not worth the effort.
Beginning construction of periodic table display
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PirateDocBrown
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There's a few YT vids on this.
Start with King of Random's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgGhNfJfSK0
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Gearhead_Shem_Tov
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Thanks for the video like, PirateDocBrown .
Really, though, I'm more interested in salvaging the lead plates than in recycling them for their lead content. If at all possible I would like to
rebuild a version of the lead-acid battery from its components.
I know this is not a cost-effective thing to do. I'm approaching it in the spirit of recreating projects I've seen in century-old issues of Popular
Mechanics or Popular Science and in books such as "The Boy Electrician" by Alfred P. Morgan. It's an aesthetic thing, for fun.
As for the alloying elements in the lead plates, I believe modern batteries are more likely to have calcium alloyed in their plates than antimony.
This apparently reduces hydrogen gassing. I don't know about the alloy used for the terminals, though.
What would be a simple test for Sb?
-Bobby
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Melgar
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The plates will probably not be intact anymore. Hence, the reason that your battery stopped working in the first place. You'd need to recycle the
lead and cast new plates or something, if that's your goal.
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unionised
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It is entirely possible that some cells still work fine.
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Melgar
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It's still going to be comprised of "failed" and "about to fail" cells, even if some are more degraded than others. Engineers take courses on how to
design things so that all the parts that are expected to fail sooner or later, wear out around the same time. If some of those plates looked like
they had a lot of life in them when the battery died, that's actually a sign of bad engineering.
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Gearhead_Shem_Tov
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Even if some plates are damaged, I'm hoping that some will be usable. It will result in a smaller capacity battery, sure, but it should still be
interesting.
-B
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S.C. Wack
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The spongy Pb will be in worse shape (much more delicate) than the PbO2. The PbO2 that remains on will mostly want to stay on, with more or less good
coverage. The Pb not so much.
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RogueRose
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Quote: Originally posted by S.C. Wack  | | The spongy Pb will be in worse shape (much more delicate) than the PbO2. The PbO2 that remains on will mostly want to stay on, with more or less good
coverage. The Pb not so much. |
Really? I've had the total opposite experience in the batteries I've taken apart.
[Edited on 12-11-2017 by RogueRose]
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Texium
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I actually also recently acquired a dead car battery from a friend, which I plan to take apart when I get a chance. I'll post about my findings here
when I do.
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Mabus
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I too found a dead car battery last year, and planned on taking it apart, but after I discovered it's a very effective doorstop, I decided to postpone
its "autopsy".
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unionised
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| Quote: Originally posted by Melgar |
It's still going to be comprised of "failed" and "about to fail" cells, even if some are more degraded than others. Engineers take courses on how to
design things so that all the parts that are expected to fail sooner or later, wear out around the same time. If some of those plates looked like
they had a lot of life in them when the battery died, that's actually a sign of bad engineering. |
Sure, but I have pulled apart a few batteries in my time. My experience is that examples of "bad engineering" are quite common- I guess it's because
the temperature in the cells is usually different.
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S.C. Wack
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Is there a difference between original and replacement?
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Gearhead_Shem_Tov
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I'm not sure what the photos are showing. Difference in colour, of course.
-B
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Melgar
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| Quote: Originally posted by unionised | Sure, but I have pulled apart a few batteries in my time. My experience is that examples of "bad engineering" are quite common- I guess it's because
the temperature in the cells is usually different.
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Well, that's only ONE sign of bad engineering. In this case, it'd be cheaper to have the plates be interchangeable and only need one mold for them,
rather than to optimize the dimensions of each one for maximum life at that particular spot. Because recycled lead-acid batteries are returned to
their respective factories anyway, I'd assume the QA guys would be tallying up their failure modes and relaying the data to R&D.
[Edited on 11/13/17 by Melgar]
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unionised
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It's the one that is relevant to the thread.
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S.C. Wack
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My response, being that it was not my imagination little of the Pb and the grid it's on compares to the condition of the PbO2.
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