Material system analysis: Functional and nonfunctional cobalt in the EU, 2012–2016

Abstract

A comprehensive data inventory of the current materials cycle in industry and society is crucial for an informed discussion and for decision‐making on the supply of raw materials. Particularly, it is key to understand how these materials are functionally and nonfunctionally recycled, and enable the assessment of recycling indicators needed for the monitoring of circular economy. In this context, a material system analysis (MSA) of cobalt for the European Union (EU) from 2012 to 2016 is presented and discussed. Detailed results are provided for the year 2016, and the evolution of the flows over time is presented from 2012 to 2016. In addition, six indicators are calculated to characterize the cobalt cycle. In 2016, the EU28 embedded around 24,000 metric tons (t) of cobalt in manufactured products, and 33,700 t were put into use. The main losses of the system are due to nonselective collection of postconsumer waste (disposed), and nonfunctional recycling of old scrap. From the years analyzed, it was possible to detect a shift in the imports; the import of primary material decreased more than 99% between 2012 and 2016, and the import of semiprocessed and processed materials increased around 31% in the same period. This indicates that after 2012, the EU became more dependent on imports in downstream stages of the supply chain. One way to decrease this dependency is to establish higher collection targets, and to establish recycling targets based on the recovery of single materials, in order to decrease the amount dissipated through nonfunctional recycling.

Material system analysis: A novel multilayer system approach to correlate EU flows and stocks of Li‐ion batteries and their raw materials

“…All of these raw materials, except nickel, were also mentioned in the Strategic Action Plan on Batteries (European Commission, 2018b) as priority raw materials under the pillar “secure access raw materials.” The system boundary for the EU LIB and materials system, included manufacturing, use, collection, recycling, and trade. Extraction and processing stages of battery raw materials are discussed in the companion papers in great detail (Ciacci et al., 2021; Godoy León et al., 2021; Lundhaug et al., 2021). All the flows were calculated for the EU‐28 and are representative of the year 2016.…”

“…In turn, each of these raw material life cycle layers is a fragment of the complete individual MSA, where all the applications are computed (Ciacci et al, 2021;Godoy León et al, 2021;Lundhaug et al, 2021). In the current publication, the flows of each material in the EU Li-battery system (repre- This approach facilitates the study of the interconnections between individual raw materials and the supply chain in which they play a vital role, which can provide insights into potential critical bottlenecks for the individual materials as well as in the supply chains they are part of.…”

“…The shares of uses of each of the materials targeted were obtained as a result of complete system analysis of those materials, performed by the authors and described in detail in the three related publications (Ciacci et al, 2021;Godoy León et al, 2021;Lundhaug et al, 2021). The use phase inflow, stocks, and outflow were directly obtained from an updated database of the H2020 ProSUM project (Huisman et al, 2017(Huisman et al, , 2020RMIS, 2019).…”

“…The system boundary for the EU LIB and materials system, included manufacturing, use, collection, recycling, and trade. Extraction and processing stages of battery raw materials are discussed in the companion papers in great detail (Ciacci et al, 2021;Godoy León et al, 2021;Lundhaug et al, 2021). All the flows were calculated for the EU-28 and are representative of the year 2016.…”

“…Building on individual anthropogenic cycles of five raw materials developed in related publications (Ciacci et al., 2021; Godoy León et al., 2021; Lundhaug et al., 2021), and following the recommendations of Hamilton in 2017 (Hamilton, 2017), this work develops and applies a multilayer system approach to: (i) linking layers of material cycles of five raw materials, namely cobalt, lithium, manganese, natural graphite, and nickel because of their essential presence in high‐energy battery systems and (ii) analyzing the whole battery system across the EU LIB supply chain. The system approach developed in this study provides quantitative assessments of the links between the cycles of the materials and their applications that will identify bottlenecks and potential improvements for the EU to secure material supply and increase its competitiveness on the LIB market.…”