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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

I hope someone digs up a proper source for that because this one is a pile of AI slop illustrated with more AI slop.

Edit: I could not find anything yet.

The original press release is here: https://pnecycle.com/the-u-s-battery-circular-economy-advanc...

I don't know. It looks like every battery recycling facility I've seen before: piles of non-descript objects with unreadable labels, machines with unreadable signs posted on them, etc.

And two men in orange vests missing their left arms? Didn’t realize battery recycling facilities were so hazardous to limbs.

You know those lithium explosions can be pretty bad.

Right.

Anybody with piles of batteries like that needs a very powerful sprinkler system. Lithium battery fires at recycling centers have become a major problem, even with only a few lithium batteries. Search "lithium battery recycling fire".

There are deluge systems that can cope with battery fires. They're simple, but need a big water supply.

Seems like a waste of good water. Anyone with that quantity of batteries should have a large pile of sand on hand, a pre-placed giant hole in the ground, and a bulldozer to manage the job.

One of the recycling steps is dissolving the lithium in water. So they might just as well take a burning battery and just chuck it into the shredder, and then mix the burning slurry with water.

Contrary to the popular belief, lithium batteries do NOT contain enough oxygen to just keep self-burning. Most of the lithium-ion pyrotechnics is just from good old atmospheric oxygen, which oxidizes the organic electrolyte.

What lithium-ion batteries have is the ignition source that basically keeps going on and on. So once you extinguish the burning electrolyte, it just keeps reigniting.

Well, the point of the sand would be to stop the burning pile from spewing HF, which could be pretty annoying.

That's interesting! I didn't realize that lithium-ion batteries were full of lithium hexafluorophosphate, or that it hydrolyzed to form HF at 70° in the presence of water. Thanks!

Yeah great idea, letting the fire rage in the ground (it provides its own oxygen) and leeching a lot of chemical waste products into the ground water :)

We don't stick chemical waste in the ground anymore, just saying :)

It was my understanding that battery fires don't go out because they are basically self fueling. You would be better served having a way to contain it until it burned itself out.

it's self catalyzing, but only above a certain temperature. if you dump enough water on it, it goes out

This is why this sort of industry usually ends up in places like Pakistan and Bangladesh. They’re desperate for work and don’t worry about safety or environmental pollution.

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