What is inside an e-bike?
An e-bike is a bicycle with an electric motor, often built into the hub of a wheel, and a lithium-ion battery far larger than the one in a phone or a power tool. The battery is the main reason to recycle it with care, and the motor and the frame add magnet, copper and aluminum streams. What a given bike holds depends on its frame, its motor and its pack.
Materials in an e-bike
| Material | Where it sits |
|---|---|
| AluminumMost of its weight | Frame, rims and hub shell |
| Steel | Spokes, axle, chain and stator laminations |
| Copper | Stator windings and motor leads |
| Nickel | Cathodes of the battery pack’s cells |
| Graphite | Anodes of the battery pack’s cells |
| Manganese | Cell cathodes, in many chemistries |
| Cobalt | Cell cathodes, in many chemistries |
| Lithium | Cells of the battery pack |
| Rare earths | Ring of magnets inside the hub |
| Material | Where it sits |
|---|---|
| Tin | Solder on the controller board |
| Gold | Controller chip and connector contacts |
| Silver | Solder on the controller board |
| Palladium | Capacitors on the controller board |
What an e-bike of this kind most likely holds. Amounts are given in words, not weights, because content depends on the design.
How an e-bike is recycled
The battery pack is unlocked from the frame before anything else. It must not go in household trash or a curbside bin, because a lithium-ion battery that is damaged in collection can start a fire.1 At a battery recycler a pack of this size may be taken apart into modules or cells before it is discharged and shredded, and its lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt are then recovered by furnace or chemical routes, depending on the facility.23 The hub motor comes out of the wheel next. Motors of this kind commonly use neodymium magnets, though not every motor design uses rare-earth magnets, and a motor that is separated whole keeps its magnets and its copper windings out of the mixed scrap.45 What remains is mostly frame and wheels. The aluminum typically goes back to a furnace to be remelted, and steel parts such as the spokes, the axle and the chain are picked out by magnets and melted in turn.67
More on each stream: battery metals, magnet rare earths, steel and aluminum.
Find it in the games and recycle it
- Mine the houseE-bike (garage)
- Sort the device wallE-bike hub motor (tools and mobility)
- Find a recycling program near youCheck what the program accepts before you go.
Sources
- Used Lithium-Ion BatteriesUS EPA, General Information; Lithium-Ion Battery Disposal for Consumers
- Lithium-Ion Battery RecyclingUS Environmental Protection Agency, Section "How Lithium-Ion Batteries are Recycled"
- Batteries for Electric VehiclesUS Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center, Section "Recycling Batteries", items on smelting (pyrometallurgy) and chemical leaching (hydrometallurgy)
- Rare earth elements, end use and recyclabilityUSGS
- Rare Earth Permanent Magnets: Supply Chain Deep Dive AssessmentUS Department of Energy
- Recycling is the primary energy efficiency technology for aluminum and steel manufacturingU.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy (May 9, 2014), Article body, sections on steel (electric arc furnaces) and aluminum (secondary production)
- Metal Recycling: Opportunities, Limits, InfrastructureUnited Nations Environment Programme, International Resource Panel (2013), Section on separation of shredded material, p. 99 (PDF page 101): sorting by magnetic properties, conductivity and density, and the small-motor example; stainless steel statement, p. 74 (PDF page 76)
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