Batteries come in different sizes and shapes according to their usage and application. We use them in cars, domestic appliances, cell phones, toys, etc. To know how to make money by recycling batteries, you must know the chemical compositions of batteries and how you can do the job of recycling.
The materials in batteries are quite harmful to the environment. If they are exposed to open air they can not only pollute the environment but sometimes be fatal. Batteries can either be reused or their components are extracted for further use in other industries. This is the first step in finding how to make money by recycling batteries.
Read: How To Start a Recycling Business from Home
To start with, you can make money by recycling used batteries at extraction or processing centers. For that, you need space to store the batteries for delivery or shipping. Here it is better to work with a particular type of battery. Find out the demand and set your business accordingly.
Here are the Steps to Make Money Recycling Batteries
There are some easy ways to collect old batteries and make money recycling the batteries. Tell all your family and friends that you collect old batteries and make your own stock. Secondly, you can hire a truck or van and collect the batteries from different localities. Sell these used batteries at the scrapyard and get good money.
If you want to know how to make money recycling car batteries, you can sell them to several places like local auto repair shops, metal recycling centers, or a middleman. You can even sell them online and get a good price.
Suggested Read: Recycling Business Ideas with Low Capital
Amongst all the batteries, car batteries are more profitable to recycle and make money. If you want to make money by recycling batteries yourself, you need good capital and technical knowledge of the extraction and recycling process. Not only that, you have to put the remains of the extraction process properly on par with the environmental guidelines.
Before going into the details about how to make money by recycling batteries, you must be well aware of the procedures of recycling and thereby determine your area of operation.
How Batteries Are Recycled?
Different types of batteries are recycled in different ways. A brief description of the procedures will help you understand how to make money by recycling batteries.
a) Lead Acid Batteries
Automobile batteries are mostly lead-acid batteries. Let us know how to make money by recycling these batteries. The old battery is broken into pieces by a machine called Hammer Mill and then put into the vat, where the plastic floats, lead and other metals settle down. The plastic is easily separated, washed, dried, and sent to the plastic recycling units.
Heat the lead and its components in a furnace, clean the impurities, mold them and sell them to make new batteries.
Neutralize the Sulphuric acid into water or convert it into sodium sulfate used in detergent or glass making.
b) Alkaline Batteries
To make money recycling alkaline batteries, you have to use a mechanical separator. With the help of this, you can separate the components of an alkaline battery –zinc and manganese, steel, paper, plastic, and brass. You can sell all these in the market for various industrial uses.
c) Nickel Cadmium Batteries
In case of making money recycling nickel-cadmium batteries, you have to separate the plastic first. The metals are separated mechanically into high-temperature metals like nickel, chromium, manganese, and iron as well as low-temperature metals like zinc and cadmium. All these metals and plastics are sold in different sectors for reuse.
d) Lithium Batteries
The battery is shredded mechanically. The contents are submerged in caustic water to get ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The clean scrap is sold in the market to metal recyclers. After the filtration of the solution, carbon is transformed into a carbon cake. Some of the carbon is recycled with cobalt.
The lithium in the solution is converted to lithium carbonate. In this way, you can supply these to the industrial houses and make money recycling the battery.
e) Nickel Metal Hydrite Batteries
Before drying, the plastic is removed from the battery. The cells are dried and moisture is removed. After drying, these cells are good raw materials for the stainless steel and alloy manufacturing industry.
f) Lithium-ion Batteries
These batteries are treated in a specialized room temperature oxygen-free process by which the main components, i.e. cobalt and lithium salt concentrate, plastic, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum. You can sell these and earn profits.
g) Nickel Metal Hydrite Batteries
Here you have to remove the plastic first. Then the cells are dried to get metals. You can sell these metals as industrial inputs. In this way, you learn to make money recycling batteries.
h) Mercury Batteries
In this battery, you have to follow a temperature-controlled process to get the heavy metals. To earn a profit by recycling these batteries, you have to sell them in the industrial market.
i) Zinc-Carbon and Zinc-Air Batteries
Both these kinds of batteries are recycled in the same way as alkaline batteries, where high temperature is used to melt the metals, which is sold to show you one way to make money recycling batteries.
How to Start a Battery Recycling Plant?
To make money by recycling batteries, you have to set up your recycling plant. But before setting up the plant, you have to decide which kind of battery you want to recycle. If you want to start in a moderate to make money recycling batteries, you can buy old, used batteries and sell them to recycling companies.
But to have your unit of Recycling, you have to go through a lot of steps. First of all, you have to make a thorough plan and form your company. Get registered with the civic authorities of your area. You have to get clearance from the Environment Department, as these batteries contain chemicals that are hazardous to the environment.
The most important point is you have to be conversant with the techniques. If you need it, you can hire a professional, but you need to know the steps of recycling if you want to make money by recycling batteries.
For the battery recycling plant, you need to have space, rented or owned, which is dry and clean with facilities of temperature control, as different batteries are recycled in different temperatures.
Read: How to Start E-Waste Recycling Business
For the collection and storage of batteries, you need a storeroom. And for recycling, you need certain machinery and skilled manpower to execute the process.
For the lead battery recycling process you need machines like:
- Battery Cutting Machine with acid treatment facilities
- Plastic Crusher
- A furnace with proper pollution control equipment
- Lead refining Furnace
- Lead Alloying Furnace
- Fugitive Emission Control System for Refining and alloying furnace
- Ingot casting machine to cast the molten metal
Lead batteries are the most common type of battery for recycling. The process of recovery of lead produces lead oxide, plastics, and acid. All these items can be sold in different industrial sectors.
There are five steps involved in the recycling process:
- Collection of batteries and putting them for recycling
- Crushing the battery into smaller pieces
- Sorting heavy metals, and plastic and removing the toxic substance
- Sieving the polypropylene from the metals
- Metals are extracted from their ores.
Also, Read: How to Start Waste Plastic Recycling Plant Business
Conclusion: If you want to make money recycling batteries, you need a good amount of investment. Around 15-20% is to be invested in machinery and installation. Then comes rent of the space, maintenance of machinery, salaries and wages, etc.
It is a moderately high investment business, but with proper knowledge and market analysis, your profits will also be high. We hope this article on how to make money recycling batteries will help you establish your waste recycling plant.
Editorial Team at 99BusinessIdeas is a team of experts led by Rupak Chakrabarty with over 25 years of experience in starting and running small businesses. Started in 2010, 99BusinessIdeas is now one of the largest free small business resources in the industry.
