Generational Toxicity and Incomplete Recovery from Spent Lithium-Ion Battery Leachate in an Aquatic Microinvertebrate

[NNadir]

The paper to which I'll refer in this post is this one: Generational Toxicity and Incomplete Recovery from Spent Lithium-Ion Battery Leachate in an Aquatic Microinvertebrate Brachionus asplanchnoidis Yi-fan Feng, Yi-fu Xing, and Jia-xin Yang Environmental Science & Technology 2026 60 (4), 2964-2975

One of the big lies in environmental thinking is that batteries in particular, and energy storage in general, are "green." Over the years here I've suffered quite a bit of exposure to this pixilated notion, coupled with the very depressing realization that even with a planet in flames, few people trouble themselves to think about the laws of thermodynamics, a key concept in making decisions about energy, and thus the environment.

This handwaving exercise in mindless credulity is based on the similar lie that so called "renewable energy" is "green, although there is zero evidence that throwing trillions of dollars at it has addressed anything involved with the collapse of the planetary atmosphere.

And, while there is endless fascination with tracing the genetic effects of the big bogeymen at Chernobyl and Fukushima, in the former case concerning the multiple species that have come to thrive in the Viridian exclusion zone in the absence of humans, there is little focus on the mutagenic effects of the industrial products that exist all over the world beyond the exclusion zone.

Well, it would seem that there is some attention being paid, if one bothers to read the paper cited at the outset of this post.

To wit from the introduction:

Global deployment of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) continues to surge. (1−3) In 2019, the global LIB market volume was ca. 1.2 million tonnes and is projected to exceed 12.7 million tonnes by 2030. (4−6) The in-use stock scales with per-capita electric vehicle (EV) ownership; as service time accumulates, large-scale retirement and disposal are unavoidable. (7) Spent LIBs are one of the fastest-growing categories of solid waste, (8) and end-of-life (EoL) management remains inadequate: retired cells often enter formal resource recovery streams, landfills, incinerators, or the informal sector. (9) Leachate arises not only from improper disposal or prolonged storage but also during routine recycling operations, where aqueous contact is intrinsic (battery discharge/rinsing, shredding with process water, wet scrubbing and quenching in pyrometallurgy, and leach/wash streams in hydrometallurgy). (5,10) Once generated, stormwater, leaks, or overflows can transport it via overland runoff, infiltration, percolation, and seepage into surface waters, the vadose zone, and groundwater. The leachate carries heavy metals and dissolved gases that are directly toxic and can alter soil properties, thereby enhancing metal release. (5)

Field measurements at a landfill containing LIBs found that 42.50% of total Li and 11.45% of total Mn were present in solution, whereas less than 4% of Co, Ni, Al, Cu, and Fe were detected. (11) Lithium cobalt oxide (LCO, LixCoO₂) and lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NMC, Li_xNi_yzCo_1–y–zO₂, 0 less than x, y, z less than 1) nanoparticles exert toxic effects on Daphnia magna in ways not fully explained by dissolved metal levels alone, implicating both ion release and nanoparticle uptake/adherence as key routes. (12) Recent single-cell work with LCO nanoparticles further supports a “two-hit” mechanism: intact nanoparticles are first internalized and act as potent sources of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that activate oxidative-stress response genes, whereas Li+ and CO₂+ released from the particles subsequently suppress transcription of these same genes, weakening cellular defenses against ROS. (13) Together, these lines of evidence underscore the need for a mixture-level risk assessment that reflects real spent LIB leachate rather than isolated constituents.

As primary consumers that bridge phytoplankton to higher organisms and accumulate contaminants from lower levels, rotifers facilitate pollutant transfer through the food web; (14−17) Brachionus asplanchnoidis, a coastal planktonic member of the Brachionus plicatilis species complex, therefore provides a model for ecotoxicological assessment at the base of the zooplankton community. (18) They also offer clear experimental advantages─simple body plan, small size, eutely (a fixed number of somatic cells), rapid reproduction, short generation time, clonal propagation, and ease of culture─supporting reproducible ecotoxicology tests. (19,20) Many LIB material recovery facilities (MRFs), owing to convenient logistics and lower transportation costs, are located in coastal areas, and their potential impact zones overlap with the distribution range of marine and estuarine rotifers. (5,21) This spatial coincidence creates a plausible pathway for spent LIB leachate to impact coastal aquatic ecosystems...

There's a lot of nice descriptions of the experimental procedures, which I'll skip, to offer some results:

Spent LIB leachate induced morphological abnormalities and body size reduction in rotifers, consistent with toxicant-induced malformations and growth inhibition reported in rotifers and other zooplankton. (32,33) In this study, 5% spent LIB leachate was treated as an environmentally conceivable but conservative high-end exposure, as might occur in near-field mixing zones or poorly flushed coastal ponds receiving related leachate and was used to characterize hazard potential and response patterns. Such morphological changes can lead to alterations in feeding activity and physiological functions, (34) and feeding-related parameters are often treated as sensitive early indicators of ecological disturbance. (35−37) Consistent with this, feeding metrics in the present study tended to improve toward control levels, whereas deeper-level indicators related to growth and reproduction showed only partial or no reversal, which suggests asynchronous and often incomplete recovery across end points. Similar precedence of feeding recovery over other traits has been reported for the freshwater amphipod Echinogammarus meridionalis following Cu2+ exposure and subsequent depuration, supporting the generality of this sequence... (38)

...and...

...Continuous exposure to the leachate led to a progressive decline across generations, culminating in population collapse, which suggests the intergenerational intensification of toxicity. Multigenerational toxicity has been attributed to combined effects of toxin bioaccumulation and erosion of adaptive capacity. (64,65) Comparable cross-generation patterns─stronger reproductive inhibition or population failure under multigenerational high-concentration exposure and partial accommodation under lower doses─have been reported in rotifers, (66,67) copepods, (68) and soil invertebrates. (69)...

...and...

Spent LIBs can release metal-rich leachate during storage, dismantling, and recycling, creating mixture-level hazards for coastal and estuarine ecosystems. The present findings indicate a metal-dominated toxicity signature in a typical aquatic microinvertebrate, B. asplanchnoidis, characterized by asynchronous and often incomplete recovery: feeding tends to rebound after stress removal, whereas developmental and demographic traits lag; under continued exposure, lineages collapse within four generations; resilience is modulated by energy and nitrogen availability. These outcomes argue for mixture-aware risk assessment of spent LIB leachate.

I'll skip sharing the figures in the paper. The text is clear enough.

Don't worry, be happy. There isn't enough cobalt on the planet to cover a month long episode of Dunkleflaute in Germany, as I pointed out some years ago:

The Number of Tesla Powerwalls Required That Would Address the Current German Dunkleflaute Event.

The "batteries will save us" fantasy will come crashing down sooner or later, albeit not without tremendous environmental cost.

The moral cost is delineated in a very recent book I'm going through, to which I've referred in this space, the title of which is a witty, if depressing pun.

From a recent comment I made elsewhere:

I would certainly advise anyone buying into the "renewables will save us" Kool-Aid, to read this excellent, new book on the topic:

The Elements of Power

Subtitle:

A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth

...By Nicolas Niarchos

I'm reading it right now, although I have long understood that so called "renewable energy" is not renewable, nor has it ever been about displacing fossil fuels, on which it depends. It was always about attacking the last best chance humanity had at eliminating fossil fuels, nuclear energy.

Have a nice evening.