Honda to recycle rare earth metals in hybrid car battery

Honda to recycle rare earth metals in hybrid car battery

Honda is making hybrid engines a little bit friendlier to the environment. And I don’t mean by a new more efficient engine that cuts more emissions. Honda Motor Co. and the Japan Metals & Chemicals Co. have joined forces to establish the world’s first process to extract rare earth metals from various used parts in Honda products.

This is not an experimental process but one that actually works. The recycling will happen in an actual recycling plant in a mass-production process.

Before the end of the month, the partnership will begin extracting rare earth metals from used nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are current present in a majority of hybrid cars on the road. The batteries will be collected from Honda hybrid vehicles at Honda dealers inside as well as outside of Japan.

Honda to recycle rare earth metals in hybrid car battery

Here is how it works (an exerpt from the press release):

Honda had been applying a heat treatment to used nickel-metal hydride batteries and recycling nickel-containing scrap as a raw material of stainless steel. However, the successful stabilization of the extraction process at the plant of Japan Metals & Chemicals Co., Ltd. made possible the extraction of rare earth metals in a mass-production process with purity as high as that of newly mined and refined metals.

The newly established process enables the extraction of as much as above 80% of rare earth metals contained in used nickel-metal hydride batteries. Honda will strive to reuse extracted rare earth metals not only for nickel-metal hydride batteries, but also to a wide range of Honda products. Moreover, Honda will further expand the recycling of rare earth metals in the future as the newly established process enables the extraction of rare earth metals from a variety of used parts in addition to nickel-metal hydride batteries.

So, if you own a Honda hybrid or will be owning one soon, you can rest easier knowing that your car is a little bit greener.

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Chris Ng

Chris Ng believes that all cars are made equal, and each one has its own unique story to tell. As such, the ex-advertising man is here doing what he truly loves, which is authoring the allegories and anecdotes of automobiles. Having served time in a motoring mag, he believes there's nothing more sublime than keeping the pedal floored and things burbling in top gear.

 

Comments

  • Anthony Yee on May 03, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    Then the battery don’t sell so expensive la..

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  • Dr.San on May 03, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Hope Honda not recycling the thailand flood scrap?

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  • Polo Saga on May 03, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    good job, Honda!!

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  • PPKIA on May 03, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Honda will never be a green concept company in my eyes.
    They still insist on 5K service interval on their cars, even if you use synthetic engine oil.

    They advocate planting of tress but brag about it in magazines that are made from those tress, recycled or otherwise.

    Boast about hybrids that are supposedly green leaves more carbon footprint than it’s petrol versions.

    They have no diesel versions!?

    In fact, they are the most wasteful company of all.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
    • Hyundai De La Junk on May 03, 2012 at 2:30 pm

      Wake up No Diesel Version in Malaysia only, because our Euro2 Diesel.

      Heve you heard of I-Dtec ? Do you know Honda sell diesel car in India & Europe ?

      Hyundai & KIA too produce Hybrid Car doesn’t that make them as guilty ?

      Samsung been the biggest Handphone & LCD/LED producer doesn’t that make them the biggest polluter ?

      Since Hyundai/KIA produce more car than Honda, so they create more pollution than Honda.

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    • xavier lert on May 03, 2012 at 2:44 pm

      if u use fully synthetic … u can skip the 5k and come at 10k..nothing wrong with the warenty (did it before , n still claim few Ks from warenty).
      for the mags, just subscribe the online they will send the dowload link for u..
      problem solve.

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    • Agreed, the 5K service interval actually creating much more pollution frm a Hybrid than a normal petrol combustion engine. Unfortunately diesel still can’t make it here in Malaysia though. The whole process of making a hybrid actually creating far more pollution than just making a very fuel efficient petrol combustion engine like what Mazda did with their Skyactiv. Hybrid actually adding in more highly polluted batteries in an already heavily processed car. Here is an interesting comparison… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badoMjA_rW0

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  • albag on May 03, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    did i hear RARE EARTH???

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    • bongek on May 04, 2012 at 7:54 am

      damn,,,another demonstration, now at Honda Malacca pulakk….

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  • autojohndoe on May 03, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    So… Gebeng Lynas plant can expand business?

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • silver on May 03, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    PPKIA i guess in ur eye everyone and every company is guilty . because most of us drive which is a big no no… even worse with air asia we go at least one vacation a year which is even worse tehn driving ..if honda don’t advertise their product they would be no sale and the company would have gone under.. the world we life in we have to be competitive but yet some how try to be sustainable .. no one is a saint . even NGOs who travel around the world to protect nature and stuff…. do so by suing a plane… what it matters is trying the best you can to help out without sacraficing to much of yourself

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  • drMpower on May 03, 2012 at 3:19 pm

    will that make u love me?!!???

    all i want is the old vtec open prannggggggggg with little money paid for the fuel plus i am the greenest man in the worlddddd

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  • Zaharuddin on May 03, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Yes bro, rare earth. That’s why the opposition is destroying lynas. They don’t want cheap cars.

    Surely this comment will not appear.

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  • kjryth on May 04, 2012 at 7:40 pm

    ini tin kosong..hidup proton

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