IBM Research wants laptop batteries to retire and slum it IBM's Indian research lab has come up with a nice idea: using old laptop batteries too feeble to power a ThinkPad as off-grid power sources. In a paper [PDF] titled “UrJar: A Lighting Solution using Discarded Laptop Batteries”, IBM and Radio Studio India boffins explain that “Forty percent of the world’s population, including …
If the laptop batteries I have disassembled are anything to go by (I'm not one for following the instructions not to disassemble them) then once you remove the casing, you are left with a series of AA type cells wired in series to a small controller board.
From what I can tell, what they're really doing is finding a reliable source of good-enough Li-ion cells, rather than reusing laptop batteries wholesale (I saw a picture of this the other day on another news site).
Liithium-Ion polymer batteries are in the form of a soft pouch, often surrounded by a hard case for extra protection, though devices with non-removable batteries use the device casing itself for that.
"Regular" Lithium-Ion batteries are cylindrical metal cans, where instead of the polymer keeping the components pushed against eachother, the metal container exerts mechanical pressure on its contents.
Cylindrical cells are the most common type used for laptops, with the 18650 size being the most common. (18mm by 65mm). Yiur typical laptop battery has somewhere between 2-9 of these cells, in various parallell and series arrangements. A battery management, protection, and sometimes, "tell laptop this is genuine expensive battery"-chip complete the battery pack, which is then encased in hard plastic.
When a laptop battery fails, it's usually because one set cells in series arrangement has died. The entire pack is limited by its weakest participant. I recently disassembled a dead 6 cell battery. It was arranged as 2P3S, that is, 2 cells in parallell, 3 of these pairs in series. 1 pair was totally dead, had leaked, and its mechanical protection had severed its internal connections. Must've been running hot! Anither pair had so-so performance, and one pair had excellent performance.
Now, laptop battery recycling already takes place in China. Enterpresing people obtain dead laptop batteries, crack them open to harvest the cells that still function a little bit, and reuse them to make "new" laptop batteries. Thesd are sold on ebay, at significantly lower price compared to official genuine packs. The plastic casing, labels and holograms cost cents to make, and are not reused.
The cells nit reused for laptop packs, are given a new shrinkwrap, a fantasy capacity label, sometimes a circuit board is added, and then sold on. There's a significant market with e-cig users and fancy flashlight users, for cylindrical li-ion cells. It's remarkable that such a market exists, considering that no reputable manufacturer willingly or knowingly sell "bare" li-ion cells, thry always require the cells to be either built into a device, or buolt into a battery pack, and measures in place to prevent charging by anything except the designated charger. As such, one can consider all "lose" cells for sale a bit dubious.
"There's a significant market with e-cig users and fancy flashlight users, for cylindrical li-ion cells. It's remarkable that such a market exists, considering that no reputable manufacturer willingly or knowingly sell "bare" li-ion cells, thry always require the cells to be either built into a device, or buolt into a battery pack, and measures in place to prevent charging by anything except the designated charger. As such, one can consider all "lose" cells for sale a bit dubious."
Torches and ecigs generally use the 18x50 batteries - which you mentioned - and they are available from many sources. Some of the more powerful types can use a higher voltage/capacity polymer type as you also described, which while less common are also readily available. They are not always built into devices or larger sealed battery packs.
Of course dodgy recycling happens - and that is one of the reasons why phone fires and exploding ecigs* are in the news - but these batteries are readily available for many reputable manufacturers such as Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Sony.
* Ecig failures are often down to user twatness as well, but a dodgy battery doesn't help.
My only worry would be how those people would then dispose of the batteries when they properly die. These batteries may cost more to recycle, and I agree with the reuse before recycle principal, but better to recycle them now than bury them after reuse. The recycling process works fine for these batteries, and many are reused as part of renewable energy projects anyway. It's nice to help out third world countries but realistically shipping the batteries half way around the world probably wouldn't be much more efficient than recycling them, especially given the sludge that container ships burn.
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