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Hacking Open A Car Battery (for Lead and Acid)


hey what’s up guys I’m hangout today
with my brother he came from Texas
because we’re doing an experiment with
car batteries and he used to work with
car batteries I did he used to sell them
but we’re not selling them today we’re
actually gonna be hacking them open I
got a new car we thought what a better
way to celebrate than to rip the battery
out crack it open and show you what’s
inside so let’s get right to it
now think about lexus is they have
decorative shrouds that cover a lot of
the engine components which makes it
look really nice but makes it kind of
difficult to get down into the
components themselves so we’ve got to
pop off all these plastic rivets in
order to be able to access the battery
compartment and that’s just a matter of
taking off a few screws and pulling the
battery right up and out all right we’re
going to take the negative terminal and
off first
once the negative is disconnected the
electrical system should be protected
and we’ll go to the positive next so
update guys we disconnected the positive
negative terminals we release the j-hook
and bracket that holds the battery down
in the car it should be ready to just
pull out sure so we’re gonna just keep
this thing out and show it looks like
I’ll get this one since your gloves are
like straighten yeah they’re gone all
right dude this thing’s really heavy
these batteries are like 40 to 50 pounds
a super super heavy and you can see
there’s a liquid in here if you shake it
it’ll slosh around you can actually even
see the liquid moving this is called a
wet cell battery there are types of
batteries that are called non-spill Abul
and they have an absorbent glass mat on
the inside that will soak up the
sulfuric acid and keep it from spilling
out but what we’re after is actually
this stuff this is a mixture of about 25
to 30 percent sulfuric acid and the rest
is water and we’re after that sulfuric
acid and the lead plates inside so let’s
go crack this thing open and make that a
reality alright guys so we’re in the
workshop and we’re ready to crack this
thing open what’s the best way to open
the lead acid battery probably two not
two but we’re gonna do it anyway get a
big bucket of baking soda water is
really important because it is a basic
solution and since we’re dealing with
acids if anything goes wrong we’ll have
a place where we can neutralize that
acid very
like it’s good to have this setup
extending back if you were to open these
ports and tip it over it would spill out
this is a spill opal battery it’s not
recommended to take these vents off but
you can see if we do it opens a little
port here where you can add more water
you want to use distilled water to top
off your battery you don’t want to add
more acid that’s correct
all right it looks like things are
getting pretty serious do this sit down
to business because these have acid on
them if they drop them in the solution
of baking soda we should see it fizz a
little bit and that’s an indication that
I actually have battery acid on my
gloves now as well good stuff
check it out guys we got the six ports
taken off the top and you can already
see the battery acid in there so
actually the safest way at this point
probably just be take it over to a
container turn it over and safely get
the acid out of there without having to
cracked anything because we’re working
with sulfuric acid the kind of container
we want to be using is glass here we go
[Music]
with splashes I hope you have a good
replacement batteries from your LD drive
anywhere anytime soon yeah if you feel
your skin start itching – this time slap
some baking soda solution on it if it
gets on your clothes it’ll bleach for
the color out of them that’s good enough
for now if I’m not mistaken this is
about 70% water and there’s really easy
way to concentrate the acid and that’s
simply by boiling water off but you got
to make sure using the right kind of
container when you do that or to explode
so we don’t know if this is plastic
welded together if it’s glued or what it
is we’re gonna use some tools and try
and pry it up gently to see what
gently remove that container if not
we’ll bring out the big guns I feel like
this could work you got to be careful
when you’re pulling this up because if
it snaps it gets spit acid back in your
face so probably good time to put your
safety glasses on it seems to be working
pretty well my thumb’s like full on so
yeah I’ll be right back I’m gonna go put
on a new glove all right we got the seal
broken
I think this lid is actually attached to
the leg plates right now so if we can
find a way to pull those up and out or
disconnect them we should be in business
[Music]
success so this is what the inside of a
car battery looks like guys you can see
how there are lead plates divided into
six different cells each one of these
cells generates two volts and by linking
them all in series we get a 12-volt
battery I think what we’re going to do
now is pour out the rest of this acid
and then we’re going to extract these
lead plates soak them in a solution of
baking soda water to neutralize the acid
and they’ll take a look at what kind of
materials we’ve been able to salvage it
first thing we’re gonna do is break up
all these terminals because right now if
we short this out we could eventually
have a disaster on our hands luckily for
us lead is a relatively soft metal and
just with a little poking and prying we
should be able to break these things
right off oh it sparks on that
so now can one of these battery casings
be recycled yeah actually about 98% of
the battery could be recycled and the
reason it you want to take these to
recycling depots because the lead
content the LEDs the sulfuric acid just
in general it’s it’s not really
something you want to put into a
landfill when you want to get rid of a
car battery you can recycle them by
taking them to any auto parts dealer
okay hold on one second RC the reveal we
go all I’m gonna do is just dump them in
this bucket here watch how much this
fizzes when the acid hits it Wow it’s a
powerful reaction you’re starting to
stink
you know boss Wow I think we’re
breaching the upper limits here yeah but
I wouldn’t spoon over it now this is
generating all kinds of gas which smells
terrible and I don’t believe the gas is
flammable and to prove it I’m willing to
light it with a BBQ igniter got a fire
extinguisher here got a lip flame here
let’s go ahead and test this thing out
so today you see the flame just went out
that’s because it actually does carbon
dioxide coming out but carbon dioxide
will steal the oxygen wants to stay in a
flame
every time you can see some of these are
not actually encased all these other
ones have like a vinyl pouch around them
which I imagine is some kind of a
permeable membrane but looking at these
things up close you can say this
contains the lead it’s really thin and
there’s like a metal mesh in there to
hold it all together but that right
there
is basically lead metal and there’s a
lot of cool things you can do with lead
metal and we’re going to be harvesting
this so guys we got a run but we are not
done with this project yeah we’re going
to catch in the next video what we’ve
got is some sulfuric acid that we are
going to concentrate down we’ve got some
lead plates that we are going to salvage
and turn into all kinds of cool stuff
and we got this plastic casing that
we’re basically going to clean up and
recycle so big thanks to my brother Mark
coming all the way up here from Texas to
be with us today hopefully you guys
learn something new now you know what’s
inside your car battery so we’re going
to come back to you with a new video
showing you what you do with lead and
sulfuric acid from a car battery it’s a
really cool stuff it’s really crazy
science and we looking for it in that
video talk to them
[Music]
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