laptop battery as source for lithium?

[meticulous]

SWIM was about to toss his 'only holds a charge for 5 minutes' useless laptop battery in the trash, when he noticed it was a lithium-ion battery pack. 

Would it be worth anything for lithium recovery for a certain german style reduction?

[terbium]

I have done some searching for info about the Li-ion tech and my impression was that these batteries did not have any sort of recoverable strip of lithium metal.

[mnkyboy77]

Thought the same thing with the laptop batteries...So the disection commenced.  A very wide and long strip was obtained.  (Actually, two strips of unknown identity).

A small piece of both strips was removed from the strips in the NP.  Patted lightly with a paper towel, and then thrown into a bowl of water.  One of the strips instantly started skipping on the surface of the water and displayed the exact same chariteristics as Li from a known source.

Now on to step two:  Actually trying the obtained strips in a actual rxn.
Why is there never any positive news stories about drugs?

[terbium]

Thought the same thing with the laptop batteries...So the disection commenced.  A very wide and long strip was obtained.  (Actually, two strips of unknown identity).
Well, if it was a Li-ion battery then neither of the strips was pure lithium metal.

In Li-ion batteries the lithium is stored in "intercalated" form - interspersed with carbon atoms in a sort of crystal. I suppose that in a charged Li-ion battery that this intercalated lithium might be available for use in a Birch.

This first URL requires a Postscript Document Viewer:

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/battery/oem/images/pdf/li-ionoverview.pdf

The parent URL of the above:

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/battery/oem/chem/lithion/

[sYnThOmAtIc]

Much easier and cheaper to obtain it from lithium carbonate.
Yes, That pic really is me!

[terbium]

Much easier and cheaper to obtain it from lithium carbonate.
Please, tell us how.