LEAD ACID BATTERIES?
USE OF RECYCLED LEAD IN BATTERIES
What Happens To The Scrap Batteries?
Lead Acid Batteries are made using lead. The anode plates and cathode plates are
made using lead and lead compounds. Sulphuric acid is the electrolyte. The grid
structure of the plates is manufactured using an alloy of lead and the active
material is made using lead oxide. Lead used to make batteries by small, medium,
and large industry battery manufacturers is obtained from recycled lead. Lead is
recycled from scrap batteries.
Before I go into this topic in detail I would like to give an example so that with this
analogy it becomes clear how recycled lead is used.
Let me give you a comparative example using the case of jewelers. You visit with
your old jewelry or damaged jewelry like a damaged chain or ring or something like
that to a jewelry shop. The jeweler does a due assessment of the gold and you
accept the o er for the value of your gold ornament. The jeweler then exchanges
the damaged jewelry and gives you seemingly new gold made from recycled gold.
So the gold that you have given him is going to be melted, recycled, converted to
new jewelry and it is going to be sold again.
Similar is the case with batteries that you use. The dealer who gives you a new
battery collects the batteries you have scrapped after use in your cars, buses,
trucks, forklifts, or inverters.
Where does this battery go? It goes to a smelter. The smelter removes the
container cover and all the plastic components separates the lead components
from inside, melts it, and then makes refined lead. Refined lead is not pure lead. It
may contain other metals.
The battery manufacturer needs lead alloy and lead oxide to make batteries.
The smelter adds antimony, arsenic, copper, tin, or whatever is required and
specified by the battery manufacturer and removes or adjusts the other elements
from the refined lead.
In certain cases, it is an antimony lead alloy. So antimony, arsenic, copper, and tin
all these things are put. In cases where a lead selenium alloy for a lowmaintenance battery is required a little antimony and selenium, copper, tin, sulfur,
and all these elements are added to make an alloy. The sealed maintenance-free
battery lead alloy contains calcium, tin, aluminum, and other metals.
So various types of alloy are made using this recycled lead. Battery users need to
know that pure lead is not used for making battery grids or batteries as such.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, lead oxide is another raw material used in the
battery. This material is made using pure lead. Pure lead in a majority of the cases
comes from recycled lead. Recycled lead is refined and used for making lead
oxide.
Lead acid batteries are recyclable with over 90% of the batteries being lead and
thus as a product, it meets the circular economy requirements.
I hope this article will be useful to all battery users and manufacturers, especially
those who want to clarify this to the battery users.
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