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Comment by tomatotomato37 | Hacker News Reader

The lithium in those cheap disposable things are less "lithium" and more "metallic powder/paste that theoretically contains elements of lithium." It's not something you'd want to actually use in anything important like a car battery

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Not true. "Disposable" vapes use commodity li-ion cells, of the same basic type that you'd find in a cellphone, a laptop or an EV. They probably aren't the best quality, but there's nothing unusual about the chemistry or packaging. Li-ion cells are the preferred chemistry because of the very high discharge rate - alkaline or primary lithium cells just can't deliver enough current. The cell is perfectly capable of being recharged, but some people prefer the convenience of a disposable device and manufacturers are quite happy to respond to that demand.

It's wasteful, I don't particularly approve of it, I expect to see a lot of jurisdiction ban disposable vapes, but nor do I think it's particularly egregious or meaningfully impacting on the commodity price of lithium carbonate.

https://hackaday.com/2022/05/05/2022-hackaday-prize-disposab...

some people prefer the convenience of a disposable device

I don't understand this. Instead of plugging it into a charger, they'd rather go to the store to buy another, or more likely order online and wait for it to be delivered?

it's the convenience. If they had the executive function to get them online, they would save money and get a reusable device instead.

I introduced a battery charger to a group of people that used disposable vapes and the knowhow to charge them. It changed the way they interacted with the vapes completely even saying funny high ideas like "we should patent this".

i don't have personal experience with this, but i imagine so, because if you plug your vape into a charger, you can smoke it in an hour or two, and if you buy a cigarette at the convenience store that's a block away, you can smoke it in two minutes

maybe you live somewhere without convenience stores

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