r/science • u/Sort_of_Frightening • Sep 10 '23

Chemistry Lithium discovery in U.S. volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
17.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Akimotoh Sep 10 '23

Is it a gigantic waste of resources to use the Lithium now with our weaker EV battery technology as a opposed to investing more money into research and development of better batteries with the Lithium deposits in the future?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

I think the question is what happens when todays batteries fail. Do they end up in a landfill? Or do we have the technology to efficiently reclaim that lithium?

I think that’s the critical thing…not that we’ve “solved” batteries.

1

u/Rave-TZ Sep 11 '23

Lithium batteries are 95% recyclable with zero degradation. It’s pretty amazing really. The EU is looking for ways to trace lithium batteries to keep them from being exported because of how valuable it can be to recycle them.

1

u/ahfoo Sep 11 '23

Lithium salts used in batteries are water soluble which means that it is relatively easy to recover them so there is no waste involved in refining lithium to high concentrations today. The crux of the issue is that lithium is not a fuel, it is a storage media. You do not consume it by using it now. You are simply building up the supply of concentrated salts which can be used indefinitely.