Honda innovate again - rare earth recycling now

Others talk about high-tech recycling … but Honda’s actually doing it.  They’ve set up the world’s first plant to extract ‘rare earth’ metals from various used parts in Honda products, including the nickel-metal hydride batteries.

Let’s be clear, this is a in an actual mass-production process at a recycling plant, not an experimental process.  They are starting extracting rare earth metals from used nickel-metal hydride batteries collected from Honda hybrid vehicles at Honda dealers inside and outside of Japan.

Honda don’t say which of the 17 ‘rare earth’ earth metals, which include the exotically-named scandium, promethium, yttrium and cerium, but it’s likely to include lanthanum. Lanthanum helps make ‘nickel-metal hydride’ much more energy efficient, compared to a lead acid battery.

Today, every Toyota Prius hybrid contains about 10 pounds of this precious metal. Read more: 4 Rare Earth Elements That Will Only Get More Important - Popular Mechanics

http://world.honda.com/news/2012/c120417Reuse-Rare-Earth-Metals/?r=m/?r=m

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