More on Lithium

Tuesday, 14th April 2009 16:14 - by Didedo

I thought it might be useful to share some of the information I have found on lithium. To begin with, I have found out from news reports, that companies who produce lithium batteries have reported a slump in sales. These are the batteries that are used in hand-held electronic devices such as notebook computers, phones, etc. Obviously, what with the recession, sales on these devices have fallen and led to a decline in the requirement for the batteries – therefore, a supply-side ‘glut’ has developed. However, development of lithium-ion batteries, for electric vehicles, appears to be progressing. Some car manufacturers, including General Motors and Mercedes, are looking to go into mass production of hybrid cars, utilising lithium-ion batteries, as early as 2010. I can see there are number of environmental issues associated with lithium. The most obvious is the destruction of salt flats which, as I posted in my last Blog, is of concern in Bolivia (and something they do not take lightly…at the moment). There is also the matter of safe battery disposal, which has certainly been an issue with those used in electronic devices. I dare say there will be legislation about such points for lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles, but I haven’t found anything on-line as yet. I have found out, however, that they can be recycled/re-used, but I don’t have any facts on their total ‘life’ nor what happens to them subsequently. Supemoto has asked me to investigate the environmental impacts in greater detail which I’ll do next week. There are also issues, as keepitsimple highlighted, of safety as they are prone to overheating. Looking at various articles, solutions such as cooling systems are required to mitigate the problem. To wrap up today’s Blog, I have listed some of the sites I went to for my research:- (From Admin: Apologies for you having to cut-and-paste these links. We will make these ‘clickable’ as soon as possible.) This is a website I picked up from a recommendation made by mogo. Apart from the website being useful, there is a great article under the heading Contributed Commentaries, titled 'Obama, Lithium, and Uranium' which goes into much more detail about lithium: http://www.kitcometals.com/ I have read a number of articles that question the availability of lithium to meet global demands. Here is an article which calculates lithium car battery requirements: http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2009/03/27/gms-volt-lithium-batteries/ Report on the lithium battery ‘glut’: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerElectronics/idUSSEO14516020090129 The science behind the genetically modified ‘virus’ battery:http://www.physorg.com/news157900776.html Car manufacturers who are looking at lithium battery hybrid vehicles:http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/category/lithium-ion-batteries/ Examples of lithium battery producers and developers:http://www.icis.com/blogs/green-chemicals/2009/01/the-race-for-car-lithium-batte.html List of lithium mining companies:http://www.google.com/finance?q=lithium+mining Example of a Chilean producer of lithium:http://www.google.com/finance?q=sqm Although General Motors are reducing staff, they are actually adding staff globally to develop their Chevrolet Volt car:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4ih2eO7bz18