Researchers at IBM say that several of the estimated 50 million lithium-ion laptop batteries thrown out every year could provide electricity storage sufficient to light homes in poor countries.
It is possible to combine LED lights with solar panels and rechargeable batteries, using discarded batteries could make the approach far cheaper.
“The most costly component in these systems is often the battery,” says Vikas Chandan, a research scientist at the lab’s Smarter Energy Group, who led the project. “In this case, the most expensive part of your storage solution is coming from the trash.”
Working with a hardware R&D firm called RadioStudio, the IBM group tore open discarded laptop battery packaging and extracted individual storage cells, tested and chose the best available ones, then combined them to form refurbished battery packs. After adding charging dongles as well as circuitry to prevent overheating, the team gave them to five users in Bangalore who lived in slums or operated sidewalk carts.
After three months, the users said the battery packs worked well and the only requests were for rat-resistant wires and brighter bulbs, says Mohit Jain, a research engineer with the group.
An estimated 50 million laptop and desktop computers are discarded in the United States every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, in India alone, about 400 million people lack grid-connected electricity.
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