I replaced the battery for my Dell laptop and was curious to see what was inside. I was vaguely aware you can check how far gone your batteries are by reading out the voltage and to my surprise they read 4.21V, 4.25V and 4.28V. According to my laptop battery information, the total capacity was around 35% (14 Wh).
I know very little about batteries but given all three cells are seemingly fully charged, it is possible there's an issue with the circuit of the battery? I'm just curious to learn more about these batteries as it seems wasteful (and perhaps dangerous?) to recycle these given they're fully charged.
Close-up of a LiPo battery. The text on the battery reads: + HS 458455 - 3.85V 220227 22/23 10331 H3.
The inside of a Dell 3-cell 38 Wh lithium ion battery, containing three identical standard lithium ion battery pouches.