Lithium Batteries: Should we continue the use of lithium

batteries;
A battery is a source of electrical energy to power electrical devices. It has two
terminals, the positive cathode and the negative anode, from which energy flows
in a circuit. In other words, it is a controlled storage of energy. The batteries
function by having a chemical reaction that triggers the flow of electrons from
ions.

Today, there are two types of batteries, primary and secondary.

Primary batteries work with single-use chemical reactions. These reactions tend
to be hard or impossible to reverse, which is the reason why they have only one
life. It is finished, and then discarded. These batteries are generally used on low
power consumption devices that don’t require extensive or intensive flow of
electricity. Secondary batteries are rechargeable. They have chemical reactions
that can occur to produce energy, and can be reverted back to the original state,
and then repeat. These batteries tend to lose effectiveness with use, and need
replacement. They’re more expensive than primary batteries, but they have lower
cost of ownership (cheaper the longer you have them).

These batteries work with three general parts; the cathode, anode, and
electrolyte. If we visualise the battery as a circuit in a U form, there are two
branches that aren’t connected. The anode would be the positive terminal, and
the cathode would be the negative terminal. Each of the terminals have the
purpose of generating a specific charge inside the battery. Since these two aren’t
connected, there wouldn’t be any success at creating a circuit, and here is where
the electrolyte would come in.

Electrolytes are essentially the material that will connect both terminals. The way
that electrolytes work is that when current flows through them, there is an
unbalancing, and then positive charge ions will go to the cathode, and the
negatively charged ions will go to the anode. Using this movement

Lithium ion batteries are relatively new in commercial use, and improve a lot of
problems with previous secondary batteries. Lithium batteries charge quicker,
have larger power density (meaning it can provide more energy for a smaller
battery), and a longer battery life. This is due to the fact that lithium-ion batteries
use a chemical reaction called intercalation. Essentially, lithium batteries use
chemicals which have different layers, and there’s space between those layers.
Intercalation is the displacement of an ion from/to different layers, which
precises energy to occur, and releases energy when reverted. For example, in
most lithium ion batteries, the electrolyte (where the electrons will flow through)
is lithium hexafluorophosphate.

Lithium has taken an essential role in modern day society, in which most of our
technology depends on one way or another. It is to be noted that lithium poses a
great development to battery technology, with increased life spans, higher energy
density, overall cheaper, extremely safe and very thermally stable. These pros are
the reasons why lithium is having such an important role in technological
development, but recently there have been new investigations on the negative
impact lithium batteries pose to the world. The main concern nowadays is the
water consumption that lithium processing has, and the recycling of lithium ion
batteries.

The mining of lithium consists of a very environmentally tolling process. Lithium

deposits tend to be in very dry and arid environments, where water is a precious
commodity. The problem comes from how water intensive the lithium extraction
process is. Lithium coming from salars (salt deserts), is extracted by dissolving
the salts with a brine solution, which are then left to evaporate. It is then
separated from the other residues via a chemical process and then is turned into
compounds used in batteries. The usage of copious amounts of brine, is the main
water consumer in the process. In regions like Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina, the
usage of most of the region’s water for lithium extraction has led to the reduction
of the water available to towns, native tribes living in the desert, and is
contributing strongly to the drying of rivers and lakes in the region, extracting a
21% more of water from 2000-2015 than the natural flow of water (via rain or
meltwater).

Recycling is among the other biggest concerns on lithium ion batteries. At the
moment, most of the lithium batteries have one life exclusively, losing its possible
useful life in a decade or two of usage in the best cases. The problem is there is
barely any infrastructure to dispose of lithium batteries properly, and can
potentially result in a safety hazard if disposed as normal garbage. These
arguments don’t tend to account because they’re very present centred, without
looking at the whole panorama. Currently, the creation of infrastructure to
sustain our lithium consumption is beginning to take off, and could very possibly
take care of the proper disposal of lithium batteries.
Though this may be the case, I believe that current lithium ion batteries aren’t the
ultimate solution to our energy storage problem, due to the problems that lithium
batteries pose, but also due to the possible alternatives that are being tested, such
as radioactive diamond batteries or iron-air batteries (which work on the
oxidation process of iron).

Bibliography:
How nuclear waste and diamonds can save smartphone batteries | Digital Trends
Are Radioactive Diamond Batteries the Solution to Nuclear Waste? | Interesting
Engineering
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia
Lithium-Ion Batteries - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
In pictures: South America's 'lithium fields' reveal the dark side of our electric
future | Euronews
Diamond battery - Wikipedia
The Paradox of Lithium - Climate Columbia
Lithium Extraction and Refining | Saltworks Technologies