Extracting and processing lithium requires huge amounts of water and energy, and has been linked to environmental problems near lithium facilities (Credit: Alamy) The current shortcomings in Li battery recycling isn't the only reason they are an environmental strain. Mining the various metals needed for Li batteries requires vast resources.
Lithium-ion batteries offer a contemporary solution to curb greenhouse gas emissions and combat the climate crisis driven by gasoline usage. Consequently, rigorous research is currently underway to improve the performance and sustainability of current lithium-ion batteries or to develop newer battery chemistry.
Currently, lithium (Li) ion batteries are those typically used in EVs and the megabatteries used to store energy from renewables, and Li batteries are hard to recycle. One reason is that the most widely used methods of recycling more traditional batteries, like lead-acid batteries, don't work well with Li batteries.
Currently, sodium batteries have a charging cycle of around 5,000 times, whereas lithium-iron phosphate batteries (a type of lithium-ion battery) can be charged between 8,000-10,000 times. But researchers are working to solve this – in 2023, scientists and engineers in China achieved 6,000 cycles using a different type of electrode.
Although lithium batteries produce more voltage than sodium batteries, there is a scarcity of lithium. However, sodium batteries have an unlimited supply of easily extractable sodium from the world's oceans. The statement about producing nuclei in the passage is not quite correct.
The difficulty in obtaining lithium is linked to its high chemical reactivity, which causes it to be diluted everywhere and rarely found in easily mineable deposits, as explained by @Scott Carnahan in his answer.