A qualitative assessment of lithium ion battery recycling processes

With the widespread adoption of e-mobility, there are high numbers of lithium Ion batteries (LIB) entering the waste stream. It is imperative that disposal and recycling strategies are developed and implemented. There is an urgent need for safe, environmentally friendly and economically affordable disposal routes for End of Life (EoL) LIBs. This study has looked at 44 commercial recyclers and assessed their recycling and reclamation processes. A novel qualitative assessment matrix termed “Strategic materials Weighting And Value Evaluation" (SWAVE) is proposed and used to compare the strategic importance and value of various materials in EoL LIBs. The sustainability and quality of recycled material are assessed by comparing the final form or composition after the recycling processes, the industrial processes and the industry type (primary sector, manufacturer or recycler). SWAVE is applied to each company, producing a score out of 20, with a higher number indicating that more materials can be recycled. The separation processes and resources from six of the prominent recycling companies are discussed further. The majority of recyclers use one or more of mechanical treatment, pyrometallurgy, or hydrometallurgy, concentrating upon high value metal extraction rather than closed-loop recycling of the metals or component materials, highlighting an environmental and technological gap. To improve the current circular economy of batteries reuse and repurposing of materials (closed-loop recycling), instead of purely recycling or recovery of metals should be considered for further development. Further studies of environmental trade-offs from recycling or recovering one material in preference to another is required

Financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling

Economically viable electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling is increasingly needed; however routes to profitability are still unclear. We present a comprehensive, holistic techno-economic model as a framework to directly compare recycling locations and processes, providing a key tool for recycling cost optimization in an international battery recycling economy. We show that recycling can be economically viable, with cost/profit ranging from (−21.43 - +21.91) $·kWh(−1) but strongly depends on transport distances, wages, pack design and recycling method. Comparing commercial battery packs, the Tesla Model S emerges as the most profitable, having low disassembly costs and high revenues for its cobalt. In-country recycling is suggested, to lower emissions and transportation costs and secure the materials supply chain. Our model thus enables identification of strategies for recycling profitability

LAYERS: a decision-support tool to illustrate and assess the supply and value chain for the energy transition

Climate change mitigation strategies are developed at international, national, and local authority levels. Technological solutions such as renewable energies (RE) and electric vehicles (EV) have geographically widespread knock-on effects on raw materials. In this paper, a decision-support and data-visualization tool named “LAYERS” is presented, which applies a material flow analysis to illustrate the complex connections along supply chains for carbon technologies. A case study focuses on cobalt for lithium-ion batteries (LIB) required for EVs. It relates real business data from mining and manufacturing to actual EV registrations in the UK to visualize the intended and unintended consequences of the demand for cobalt. LAYERS integrates a geographic information systems (GIS) architecture, database scheme, and whole series of stored procedures and functions. By means of a 3D visualization based on GIS, LAYERS conveys a clear understanding of the location of raw materials (from reserves, to mining, refining, manufacturing, and use) across the globe. This highlights to decision makers the often hidden but far-reaching geo-political implications of the growing demands for a range of raw materials that are needed to meet long-term carbon-reduction targets

Data supporting the comparative life cycle assessment of different municipal solid waste management scenarios

Environmental assessment of municipal solid waste (MSW) management scenarios would help to select eco-friendly scenarios. In this study, the inventory data in support of life cycle assessment of different MSW are presented. The scenarios were defined as: anaerobic digestion (AD, Sc-0), landfilling combined with composting (Sc-1), incineration (Sc-2), incineration combined with composting (Sc-3), and AD combined with incineration (Sc-4). The current article contains flowcharts of the different scenarios. Additionally, six supplementary files including inventory data on the different scenarios, data on the different damage assessment categories, normalization, and single scores are presented (Supplementary files 1–6). The analysis of the different scenarios revealed that the most eco-friendly scenario to be implemented in the future would be the combination of AD and incineration (Sc-4)

Attributional and consequential environmental assessment of using waste cooking oil- and poultry fat-based biodiesel blends in urban buses: a real-world operation condition study

Urban public transportation sector in general is heavily dependent on fossil-oriented fuels, e.g., diesel. Given the fact that a major proportion of urban pollution and the consequent threats towards public health are attributed to this sector, serious efforts at both technical and political levels have been being made to introduce less-polluting fueling regimes, e.g., partial replacement of diesel with biodiesel. In line with that, the present study was aimed at evaluating the emissions attributed to 5% blends of waste cooking oil (WCO) and poultry fat (PF) biodiesel fuels (i.e., B5-WCO and B5-PF fuel blends) when used in urban buses during idle operation mode. Moreover, the attributional and consequential environmental impacts of using these fuel blends were also investigated through a well to wheel life cycle assessment (LCA) by considering the real-world condition combustion data using ten urban buses. The findings of the ALCA revealed that the application of 1 L B5-WCO fuel blend could potentially reduce the environmental burdens in human health, ecosystem quality, and resources damage categories compared with using the B5-PF fuel blend. The situation was opposite for climate change damage category in which using 1 L B5-PF fuel blend had a lower impact on the environment. Overall, the environmental hotspots in the B5-WCO and B5-PF life cycles were identified as the combustion stage as well as the diesel production and transportation. From the consequential perspective, using 1 L B5-WCO fuel blend could potentially decrease the environmental burdens in human health, ecosystem quality, and resources damage categories. While, the situation was different for climate change damage category where using 1 L B5-PF fuel blend could have a lower impact on the environment. In conclusion, using B5-WCO fuel blend as an alternative for diesel could be an environmentally-friendly decision for the Iranian urban transportation sector at the policy level as long as the marginal suppliers of oil would be the same as the countries considered herein, i.e., Malaysia and Argentina

Challenges and recent developments in supply and value chains of electric vehicle batteries: A sustainability perspective

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) play a key role in advancing electromobility. With an increasing trend in the demand for LIBs, the sustainability prospect of LIBs lifecycle faces many challenges that require proactive approaches. There are various sustainability challenges and risks across the supply and value chains of LIBs from mining, material supplies to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), users to final disposal. Risks are for example the increased raw material demands as well as some economic risks due to price increment or political instabilities in some countries within the raw material supply chain. Despite the promising research efforts on the performance metrics of LIBs and advancing the technology, the research on the various aspects of sustainability of LIBs and its life cycle are still in its infancy and require closer attention. As the editorial of the Special Issue on sustainable supply and value chains of EV batteries, this article presents some of the most pressing challenges of EV LIBs across the different stages of its life cycle. It covers issues from supply and demand of the battery raw materials, battery manufacturing, use, and end-of-life treatments. Within this context the reported findings of some 20 different research teams from across the globe, the state-of-the-art, technical or policy gaps in EV LIBs research and development are presented, as well as market instruments such as innovative business models, and governmental interventions like subsidies or regulations. We grouped the materials presented into five main themes (1) EV and LIB materials demand projections (2) EV LIBs international trade risk (3) EV battery regulation and adoption (4) EV LIBs life cycle assessment (5) and EV LIBs reverse logistics. We conclude by discussing some future research challenges such as the need for more reliable and applicable prediction models that use accurate data on EV stock and end-of-life EVs. Finally, we argue that more collaboration between academia, manufactures, OEMs and the battery recycling industry is needed to implement successful circular economy strategies to achieve environmentally friendly, flexible and cost-efficient battery supplies, use and recycling processes

A systematic review on life cycle assessment of different waste to energy valorization technologies

Selection and implementation of effective and efficient waste management strategies have been widely considered as a matter of concern for sustainable development. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the most common approach to evaluate the environmental impacts of different waste management strategies. This paper presents a systematic review of scientific LCA studies assessing environmental impacts of waste to energy (WtE) technologies. A systematic literature review protocol was followed to characterise and critically evaluate the published literature on the environmental dimensions of LCA studies for WtE from 1981 to 2019 in terms of software, databases, life cycle impact assessment methods, environmental impacts and source of uncertainty. The major research observations were summarised accordingly, and important insights were obtained in the current review. The results showed that the treatment of specific waste material with various WtE technologies can affect different environmental impact categories in a contradictory way. For instance, anaerobic digestion can minimise environmental consequences dealing with organic wastes in the majority of impact categories but not in ecotoxicity and human toxicity impact categories. There was a general agreement in the results about the preference of incineration over landfilling for MSW treatment. Moreover, the results of sensitivity analysis showed that assumptions in substitution of WtE products are the primary source of uncertainty. Overall, the results of LCA studies confirm the application of WtE technologies in an integrated waste management strategy. In addition, the discussion in the article provides insights on technologies suitable for each waste material

Life cycle assessment of lithium-ion battery recycling using pyrometallurgical technologies

Among existing and emerging technologies to recycle spent Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) from Electric Vehicles (EVs), pyrometallurgical processes are commonly used. However, very little is known about their environmental and energy impacts. In this study, three pyrometallurgical technologies are analyzed and compared in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED), namely: an emerging Direct Current (DC) plasma smelting technology (Sc-1), the same DC plasma technology but with an additional pre-treatment stage (Sc-2), and a more commercially mature Ultra-High Temperature (UHT) furnace (Sc-3). The net impacts for the recovered metals are calculated using both ‘open-loop’ and ‘closed-loop’ recycling options. Results reveal that shifting from the UHT furnace technology (Sc-3) to the DC plasma technology could reduce the GWP of the recycling process by up to a factor of 5 (when employing pre-treatment, as is the case with Sc-2). Results also vary across factors e.g. different metal recovery rates, carbon/energy intensity of the electricity grid (in Sc-1 and Sc-2), rates of aluminum recovery (in Sc-2), and sources of coke (in Sc-3). However, the sensitivity analysis showed that these factors do not change the best option which was determined before (as Sc-2) except in a few cases for CED. Overall, the research methodology and application presented by this LCA informs future environmental and energy impact studies that want to assess existing recycling processes of LIB or other emerging technologies

Electricity generation and GHG emission reduction potentials through different municipal solid waste management technologies:A comparative review

The increasing trend in the consumption of various materials has also led to a huge increase in the final waste streams especially in the form of municipal solid waste (MSW) and the consequent environmental pollutions in particular greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These have made MSW management a significant environmental issue for governments and policy-makers. To address these challenges, developed countries have implemented sustainable material management (SMM) strategies which have been comprehensively reviewed herein. Moreover, waste generation statistics reported for most of the developed and developing countries as well as the existing gaps in MSW management among these countries have been fully discussed. The present paper was also aimed at comprehensively assessing electricity generation potentials from MSW using an integrated solid waste management system (including three different technologies of anaerobic digestion (AD), incineration, and pyrolysis-gasification) while the consequent GHG emission reduction potentials as a result of their implementation were also explored. To facilitate the understanding of the potential impacts of these treatment strategies, Iran's data were used as a case study. More specifically, the theoretical and technical potentials of electricity generation were calculated and the GHG emission reduction potentials were estimated using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Overall, it was found that 5005.4–5545.8 GW h of electricity could be generated from MSW in Iran annually which could lead to approximately 3561–4844 thousand tons of avoided CO2eq. Such GHG reductions would be translated into approximately 0.5% of Iran's annual GHG emissions and would be considered a promising achievement given Iran's international GHGs reduction commitment, i.e., 4% reduction of anthropogenic GHGs emissions by 2030 below the business as usual scenario. Such findings could also be modeled for the other developing countries around the world where efficient MSW management is yet to be implemented