We have a box car full of Edison cell nickel iron batteries that came from passenger cars. Most of them came from Erie RR cars and were made in the 1950's. Is there any scrap value for them? How does a company recover the nickel from them? We have tried to rejuvenate them with new sodium hydroxide electrolyte but they will not charge up enough to be placed back into service. We know that we can neutralize the NaOH solution with mild acid, even vinegar. If these can be scrapped the wooden cases have to be removed. Has anyone else scrapped any of these recently?

A friend who is a signaling guy has scrapped thousands of them for his railroad. When signals are being "upgraded" with LEDs and modern electronics, more Edison batteries come out-of-service regularly.

They send them with the electrolyte; the scrapper deals with them as-is.

Regards,
Bob Milhaupt

It is not necessary to separate the iron and nickel. In a previous life I was in the scrap industry. Virtuously all common nickel alloys contain iron. Consumers will know the percentages in your batteries and can add them accordingly. So whether making stainless steel, high speed steel or exotic alloys like Inconels, they can go in as they are. Your price will depend on the nickel content and how high up the food chain you are selling it.
How much is a "boxcar full"? 40,000 lbs? 80,000 lbs?" This makes a difference. Can you load them on carrier's rail car? Truck? Get back to me on these items. I am trying to find some of the people I worked with back in the day. This was 40 years ago so most are dead or retired.

This sounds like the batteries that Midwest Chapter had in the coaches on the original Cuyahoga Valley Line train consist back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Is that correct? They were old back then.

Careful here!

Scrapping batteries yourself makes you a Hazardous Waste Processor. That opens a huge can of worms. Special permits, special safety equipment, personnel training and certification, spill prevention safeguards, etc are expensive. Doing this "under the radar" can result in an enormous fine. Even worse if the electrolyte gets into the ground. You do NOT want to go there.

In July 2020, Niles Canyon Railway disposed of 3400 lbs of worn-out 50-year-old NiCad batteries from Southern Pacific grade crossing signal boxes. After some blood-curdling price quotes ($5+/lb!) from "helpful" local industrial battery recyclers, I got a $0.50/lb price quote from Battery Recyclers of America https://www.batteryrecyclersofamerica.com/battery-recycling/, a nationwide firm that recyclers all types of batteries. $0.50/lb is very cheap to ship NiCad batteries from California to Valdosta, GA, disassemble the batteries, and recycle the Nickel, Cadmium, and highly caustic electrolyte.

Your cheapest option is to sell the Edison batteries to people who want to store solar-generated power. (I think that selling them for continued use relieves you of further liability risk, but check with your lawyer to be sure.) Edison batteries last nearly forever. Use a licensed hazardous material transport company! You don't want to be part of a lawsuit after a truck carrying hazardous material (the electrolyte will quickly blind you if it gets in your eyes) gets in a wreck.

- Doug Debs
Hazmat Manager
Niles Canyon Railway

The answer for the csx communications department was to toss them over a hill and watch them break on the rocks

Please, consider making these battery cells available to other museums who might want them at a reasonable cost.

I have worked with many "Edison" (Ni-Fe) cells, and most of them can be rehabed. Those things were almost indestructible. You mentioned that you tried using Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH). if so, that's the first mistake! The proper electrolyte is Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) mixed to about 20% concentration by weight, with another 2-5% of Lithium Hydroxide (LiOH). The latter molecule is important because it acts as a depolarizer. If you have cells that sort of take a charge but are woefully underperforming, it is usually because the LiOH is missing, or the electrolyte has the wrong concentration.