Recycling batteries

A significant amount of research is being done to prevent batteries becoming the next plastic waste crisis. A battery dies because the electrode loses functionality. Batteries can be smelted down – but this leaves a huge carbon footprint.

The Ministry of Transport predicts New Zealand will have 1.9 million EVs by 2039/40 and this presents a huge need to find better ways of recycling batteries. Peng Cao, a MacDiarmid Institute researcher and associate professor in chemical and materials engineering at the University of Auckland. says smelting and extracting valuable metals is viable only for the first generation of batteries, as the second generation have much less or even no cobalt and are therefore less valuable.

“Considering that car batteries have an 8-10 year lifespan, with EVs increasing in number so much, in ten years’ time this will be a problem,” says Cao. “Car batteries will become another plastics disaster if we don’t start working right now.”

Cao is part of a Vector Energy-led battery innovation working group of New Zealand companies and researchers. Based at the University of Auckland, he is working at the nanoscale to upcycle lithium from cathodes, and refurbishing the electrode with lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese.

Recovering gold

Currently most electronic waste (e-waste) heads into landfills, where it becomes a modern-day buried treasure. The gold discarded as e-waste worldwide is estimated to be worth an estimated NZ$37 billion per year alone.

Mint Innovation is reclaiming high value elements from e-waste, using chemistry and microbes to pull out gold, copper and palladium from the green printed circuit boards in old computers, and recycling the other components including plastic, ceramics and glass fibres into building materials

      The concentration of gold in printed circuit boards is 50-100 times higher than in gold ore, says R&D lead Dr Rob Staniland. As he explains it, Mint Innovation’s process dissolves the elemental gold, after which the bacteria then act like molecular sponges, sucking up the gold ions selectively.
        The startup won Most Innovative Deep Tech Solution at the Hi-Tech Awards this year, and is looking to expand its “urban mining” operations, building plants next year in Australia and the UK. There are well-paved roads to the company itself from university labs, with five MacDiarmid Institute alumni (including Staniland himself) now working for the company.

One thing at a time

Dr. Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, had this to say about using a mobile phone while driving:

“Directing attention to listening effectively ‘turns down the volume’ on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited — a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to say, talking on a mobile phone it necessarily extracts a cost on the visual task of driving.”

He’s talking about divided attention, or the way we try to multitask and pay attention to two things at once.

In fact, psychologists tell us that we don’t do two things at once. We frame our thinking for one task then, to switch to another activity, we have to reframe our brain connections for the second task. This happens in fractions of seconds but still the processing power needed is exhausting your cognitive reserve. Frequent changes of focus can be mentally exhausting. … Continue Reading

News from First Church

May these be the gifts your Christmas brings –

Peace, Gladness, Good Health   and Love      

Just think what we’ve been through since this time last year! It has been an extraordinary time to look back on and reflect on how we all “managed” the restrictions and postponement of regular activities and events. We at First Church feel that we coped and adapted amazingly well – when services could not be held in April and May, contact was maintained with everyone either by phone or email, and Zoom services were shared on-line. 

When at the end of May we were able to meet together again, we all shared in a sense of togetherness and confidence at having supported each other and come through a difficult time. First Church has found a strength and unity of purpose in facing the future with well attended café church services in our hall. … Continue Reading