14 DAY TRIAL // Your laptop usually lives off on lithium-ion batteries, but once you’re done using the device, the power source automatically becomes obsolete.
But it often happens that producing companies find a mishap with certain battery series which end up posing fire hazard risks, so they are forced to re-call these notebook parts. What happens to them? They get discarded.
That’s why according to research, some 50 million lithium-ion laptop batteries find their way to the dust bin every year.
But researchers at IBM India believe there’s still life to be had for these unwanted batteries. The thing is they still contain usable cells, which could be used to produce light in the homes of impoverished families who don’t have access to the grid.
As Technology Review tells us, IBM researchers say 70% of obsolete notebook batteries they tested still had the sufficient power to make a comeback as a battery pack of LED lights.
The process of granting a second life to these laptop batteries involved harvesting individual cells that were still viable and the addition of some extra pieces to form the battery pack. The resulting packs were shown to be capable of powering LED lights at least four hours a day and could end up sustaining power up to a year.
For starters, the researchers offered the first battery packs to five people in Bangalore who used them in the slums or on their sidewalk carts. The project is moving forward and an improved version is already being tested as we speak.
