Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 777F (ET-ARH) on fire

[Farside]

I hope we come to the bottom of this and will find out what the reason of the fire was, and I hope it was not a bunch of Li ion batteries loaded as general cargo

[BDAttitude]

dogsridewith

Recycling is currently not possible for individual cells.
They are burned ... depending on their size in very specialized blast furnances. In my country, germany, there is exactly one that can handle car seized LiIon batteries if they need to be disposed as a whole, e.g. because their containment has been compromized.
Whenever someone speaks of "recycling" with regard to LiIon batteries they mean remanufacturing by exchanging the worst cells from the pack and treating them as described above. This does make sense, as the least performing cells wear out most quickly, however it does not solve the final disposal problem.

[tdracer]

Farsid

You can hope all you want - if I was more of a betting man, that's where I'd be putting my money.
Assuming the reports are correct and the fire started in the main deck cargo area, there isn't much there that can start a fire aside from the cargo itself - and Li Ion batteries are the most likely culprit.

[Denti]

BDAttitude

That was true a couple years ago, things have considerably progressed. Duesenfeld for example quotes 91% recycling without smelting stuff, including recovery of graphite and electrolyte. However, yes, the focus is currently on larger battery packs especially from automotive and utility level (including individual house battery solutions) installations. Smartphone and computer batteries are usually just smelt down or put into landfills which has considerably follow up problems.

[SMT Member]

Originally Posted by lomapaseo

I wonder what the difference is between declared vs mis-declared battery shipment once it gets aboard an airplane?

Declared restricted commodities must be packed according to very specific guidelines. For batteries this include the box they're packed in and the quantity of each cell and in each box. By correctly declaring the goods, seperation between incompatible commodities can also be ensured. If you don't declare it, you can illegally pack any quantity you like in any old box you fancy, and unless you're caught or something goes wrong, you'll have saved yourself a lot of money. One of the best known examples is that of oxygen generators, a 3rd party maintenance company and a ValueJet DC-9, but there are plenty others to chose from.

[BDAttitude]

Denti

This is an intresting development, however per this article from November 2019 https://www.faz.net/aktuell/technik-...-16454686.html Duesenfeld was still only a small pilot plant with no noteworthy throughput.

[GKOC41]

tdracer

And if there were boxes of PPE onboard wouldn't take much for them to go up.

[Sallyann1234]

BDAttitude

I'm told by someone who has visited the plant that there are plans to scale it up considerably. With talk of trade wars affecting supply of metals, this seems a very worthwhile development.

[etudiant]

Issue is not scaling the plant, it is dealing with the byproduct.
Most rare earths are associated with other radioactive minerals, so processing them generates a huge volume of regulatory issues. Afaik, these have not been resolved at all.