Discarded single use vapes.
Heard an item on Radio 4 this morning which said 8 million disposable vapes are thrown away in the uk each week. Previously the number was said to be 5 million. All of them contain a lithium cell, some rated at 1 Ahr, and certified for 500 charge cycles. They cause fires in the waste stream when crushed. I sometimes see them lying in the street and if i have a dog poo bag, i pick them up and re- use the cells.
This one was totally flat, after lying in a puddle which activated the vape heater switch, but it charged up fine and when tested on my Chinese battery tester produced 1045 mAhr, so it is bang on its rated capacity. I have run several cycles from it and it is fine.
I use them to replace the many AAA powered bits of nonsense which used to eat 3 AAA cells like this set of led lights. No more bin fulls of dead alkaline batteries.
They are also pretty good in torches.
It seems a horrible waste to be throwing away these cells after one charge / discharge cycle. They come in various sizes ranging from 300 and 500 mAhr to over 1000 mAhr in the different vape styles. The best ones are the big chunky ones.
I use this tiny pocket torch all the time with a small 500 mAhr vape cell in it. There are no street lights where i live and at this time of year we have 17 hours a day of darkness outside, so I always need a torch about me. The tiny torch is always in my trouser pocket and it only needs a top up charge once a week and it is nowhere near flat at that interval. It is very handy.
If you have one of those smallish led battery torches which have a plastic cage inside to carry three series connected AAA batteries, you can drop one of the chunky 1 Ahr vape cells inside if you make a metal spacer to make up for the shorter lithium cell. If you are a bodger like me, just wrap a suitable length of dowel or a snapped pencil in aluminium foil so you can make the contact between the battery negative and the base of the torch where the switch is. If you do that, you will need to insulate the spacer from the torch body otherwise the torch will be on all the time. Just use a sheet of printer paper lightly rolled up so after insertion, it expands out to the torch body and the battery and conductive spacer goes down the middle. That way the negative goes through the contact button at the base of the torch. You'll soon see how to do it if you experiment.
You can also buy tiny lithium charge / control boards from Ali express to fit a bms to the cell. They cost about 80 pence each if you buy five at once from China. That way you can charge with a usb lead without worry about over charging, and the cell can be protected against over discharge or short circuit if you connect it properly.
TP4056 charge control boards 80 pence each on Ali Express.