Life cycle assessment of lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM) batteries for electric passenger vehicles

Abstract

This study evaluated and quantified the life cycle environmental impacts of lithium-ion power batteries (LIBs) for passenger electric vehicles to identify key stages that contribute to the overall environmental burden and to find ways to reduce this burden effectively. Primary data for the assessment were collected onsite from the one Chinese leading LIB supplier, two leading cathode material producers and two battery recycling corporations from 2017 to 2019. Six environmental impact categories, including primary energy demand (PED), global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), photochemical oxidant creation potential (POCP), eutrophication potential (EP) and human toxicity potential (HTP), were considered in accordance with the ISO 14040/14044 standards. The results indicate that material preparation stage is the largest contributor to the LIB's life cycle PED, GWP, AP, POCP, EP and HTP, with the cathode active material, wrought aluminum and electrolytes as the predominant contributors. In the production stage, vacuum drying and coating and drying are the two main processes for all the six impact categories. In the end-of-life stage, waste LIBs recycling could largely reduce the life cycle POCP and HTP. Sensitivity analysis results replacing NCM 622 by NCM 811 as the cathode active material could increase all the six environmental impacts. We hope this study is helpful to reduce the uncertainties associated with the life cycle assessment of LIBs in existing literatures and to identify opportunities to improve the environmental performance of LIBs within the whole life cycle.

Environmental life cycle implications of upscaling lithium-ion battery production

“…Dry rooms are throughput independent and sized according to maximum factory capacity. This electricity requirement for the dry room in this study is in accordance with other published values in literature for large-scale LIB production Sun et al 2020).…”

“…In general, LCA literature on LIB production varies in their scope when defining the cell formation step. For example, and Sun et al (2020) state that 4 MJ/kWh and 11 MJ/kWh, respectively, are required for charging the cells, while Yuan et al (2017) state pre-charging to require about 2 MJ/kWh. calculate electricity requirements for cell formation based on the energy required to charge the cell once with 90% efficiency and state that the electricity from the discharge cycle in cell formation is utilized.…”

Design of Vacuum Post‐Drying Procedures for Electrodes of Lithium‐Ion Batteries

“…It aims at reducing the residual moisture in the cell components below a critical level to ensure a long battery cell life and high safety. On an industrial scale, post‐drying is most commonly conducted either in continuous roll‐to‐roll processes, where the electrodes or separators are often heated by infrared emitters, or batch‐wise by post‐drying whole coils in vacuum ovens [1–5] …”

Life‐Cycle Assessment Considerations for Batteries and Battery Materials

“…For batteries, most studies take a closed‐loop approach to recycling and they explore one or more of the three main recycling approaches: pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical, and direct recycling. [ 46,50,72,91,117,118 ]…”