Life Cycle Analysis Summary for Automotive Lithiumion Battery Production and Recycling

Dunn, Jennifer B.; Gaines, Linda; Kelly, James G.; Gallagher, Kevin G.

doi:10.1002/9781119275039.ch11

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Depending on individual core objectives, the cells can be charged into a smelter without any pretreatment [3], but regarding a circular economy approach, it is beneficial to consider pretreatment steps [7] in order to maximize resource efficiency. Besides conventional industrial treatments, different studies are in place to give an overview also on innovative emerging recycling paths [8,9] and also approaches to evaluate the environmental impacts of different paths [10][11][12]. First, the available processes for recycling Li-ion batteries are described, and second, innovative processes for CO2-promoted lithium phase transformations are shown.…”

Section: State-of-the-art In Recycling Li-ion Batteriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early-Stage Recovery of Lithium from Tailored Thermal Conditioned Black Mass Part I: Mobilizing Lithium via Supercritical CO2-Carbonation

Schwich

Schubert

Friedrich

2021

Metals

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In the frame of global demand for electrical storage based on lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), their recycling with a focus on the circular economy is a critical topic. In terms of political incentives, the European legislative is currently under revision. Most industrial recycling processes target valuable battery components, such as nickel and cobalt, but do not focus on lithium recovery. Especially in the context of reduced cobalt shares in the battery cathodes, it is important to investigate environmentally friendly and economic and robust recycling processes to ensure lithium mobilization. In this study, the method early-stage lithium recovery (“ESLR”) is studied in detail. Its concept comprises the shifting of lithium recovery to the beginning of the chemo-metallurgical part of the recycling process chain in comparison to the state-of-the-art. In detail, full NCM (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide)-based electric vehicle cells are thermally treated to recover heat-treated black mass. Then, the heat-treated black mass is subjected to an H2O-leaching step to examine the share of water-soluble lithium phases. This is compared to a carbonation treatment with supercritical CO2, where a higher extent of lithium from the heat-treated black mass can be transferred to an aqueous solution than just by H2O-leaching. Key influencing factors on the lithium yield are the filter cake purification, the lithium separation method, the solid/liquid ratio, the pyrolysis temperature and atmosphere, and the setup of autoclave carbonation, which can be performed in an H2O-environment or in a dry autoclave environment. The carbonation treatments in this study are reached by an autoclave reactor working with CO2 in a supercritical state. This enables selective leaching of lithium in H2O followed by a subsequent thermally induced precipitation as lithium carbonate. In this approach, treatment with supercritical CO2 in an autoclave reactor leads to lithium yields of up to 79%.

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Section: State-of-the-art In Recycling Li-ion Batteriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early-Stage Recovery of Lithium from Tailored Thermal Conditioned Black Mass Part I: Mobilizing Lithium via Supercritical CO2-Carbonation

Schwich

Schubert

Friedrich

2021

Metals

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“…Ternary battery (nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM)/nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA)) recycling has been implemented on a large scale in China, Europe, and the US, and the recent surge in lithium metal prices has also driven lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries into the production lines of mainstream recycling companies. Several life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies have been conducted to assess the environmental impact of the recycling process. − However, differences in modeling methods, system boundaries, study regions, and data sources have led to significant differences in the results, especially in the determination of allocation methods. For example, Li et al showed that the end-of-life (EoL) phase accounts for 3% of the overall LIB contribution to climate change and more than 28% of the ozone depletion potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Allocation Methods

Shi-wei

Gao

Nie

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are an important component of carbon neutrality in the transportation sector. The rapid growth of the LIB recycling industry is driven by various factors, such as resource scarcity. As a process interacting upstream and downstream, LIB recycling must consider the impact of the application of modeling approaches on the allocation of environmental benefits and burdens, especially at a time when carbon emissions are highly correlated with profit. In this study, seven allocation methods were chosen and applied to the production and multiple recycling process of typical LIB on the same data basis. The application of different allocation methods produced very disparate allocation results, and the conclusions of previous studies comparing the environmental performance of battery types need to be revisited. The life-cycle assessment (LCA) results should be interpreted with caution due to the impact of the allocation methods. Furthermore, a multi-indicator qualitative analysis based on product and process characteristics compares the applicability of the allocation methods to different aspects of LIB recycling. Relevant product standards for batteries should consider the characteristics of different methods and recommend a specific allocation method for the LCA community to employ in time to ensure that relevant studies are representative and comparable.

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“…The information related to the raw materials used in active material production is based on Majeau-Bettez et al (2011). The information related to the inactive and other materials of the battery pack (such as electronics, casing, and battery management systems) is based on information available in the literature (Ellingsen et al, 2014;Dunn et al, 2016;Cerdas et al, 2018;Kelly et al, 2019;Schmidt et al, 2019;Dai et al, 2019b;Mohr et al, 2020).…”

Section: Impact Assessment Methods and Life Cycle Inventory Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This resulting variety leads to high complexity in the field of LIB recycling. This motivated the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate different recycling routes and their impacts on the life cycle of the LIB (Gaines et al, 2010;Dunn et al, 2012Dunn et al, , 2016Ciez and Whitacre, 2019;Cusenza et al, 2019;Abdelbaky et al, 2021;Porzio and Scown, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of stakeholder perspectives on the end-of-life allocation in the life cycle assessment of lithium-ion batteries

et al. 2023

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With an increasing number of electric vehicles on roads, recycling is an important topic to design circular supply chains for batteries. To stimulate such circular supply chains, the new EU battery directive includes mandatory recycled content in batteries and recovery rates of materials for lithium-ion batteries on the European market. Modeling the end-of-life of batteries as part of a life cycle assessment (LCA) is methodologically challenging as batteries are quite complex product systems. One of these challenges is the allocation of material impacts from different life cycle stages along subsequent product life cycles. We analyzed the different stakeholders in the life cycle of a lithium-ion battery and identified possible LCA questions based on their decision contexts. For each LCA question, an LCA archetype was defined, which includes the functional unit, the system boundary, and the allocation procedure. These archetypes are applied and tested in a case study. The results show a significant variance depending on the archetype used. This highlights the importance of understanding the stakeholder perspective in LCA and decision support.

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Life Cycle Analysis Summary for Automotive Lithiumion Battery Production and Recycling

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Early-Stage Recovery of Lithium from Tailored Thermal Conditioned Black Mass Part I: Mobilizing Lithium via Supercritical CO2-Carbonation

Early-Stage Recovery of Lithium from Tailored Thermal Conditioned Black Mass Part I: Mobilizing Lithium via Supercritical CO2-Carbonation

Comparison of Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Allocation Methods

The influence of stakeholder perspectives on the end-of-life allocation in the life cycle assessment of lithium-ion batteries

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