The growing demand for BEV is expected to impact the battery demand from the transport sector. According to the IEA (2021), battery production increased up to 33% in 2020 from 2019. Due to the electrification of the vehicle fleet, the transition towards cleaner mobility will also rely on the impacts of battery production. Therefore, more attention is required to the life cycle processes of the battery.
Battery chemistries
A battery for a vehicle converts chemical energy into electrical energy while driving. When charging, the process is inverse. It consists of several cells containing two electrodes from different materials separated with the electrolyte as a conductor. The chemicals reaction forces the release of electrons from the negative electrode (-) to the positive electrode (+) and, therefore, produces electricity to move the car.
The negative electrode is called the anode, and the positive electrode is called the cathode. Several battery chemistries exist for the anode and cathode’s composition. The predominant battery used for an electric vehicle is the Lithium-ion battery (LIB), where lithium ions movements ensure the discharge and charge. LIB offers the advantage of having a very high energy density compared to other technology. The chemistry of the anode is generally composed of graphite-based materials.
The cathode’s component is a lithium transition metal oxide. The active materials vary. Currently, the main battery used is Lithium Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum oxide also called NCA (Nickel Cobalt and Aluminium) and Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt oxide also called NMC (Nickel Cobalt Manganese) (ICCT, 2020). It means that the cathode is composed of a combination of the three transitional metals. For NMC battery, it exists a different quantity of the three materials. These include NMC 111, NMC 532, NMC 622 and NMC 811. The numbers refer to the specific ratios for each material. The predominant ratios are 532 and 622. Due to high social risks for cobalt, the trend for new battery developments is transitioning towards less cobalt and more nickel.
Sustainability assessment of the battery production.
Environmental impacts
The environmental impacts of the battery can be very complex to assess. It varies greatly depending on the chemistry as their size, production processes and raw materials extraction differ. Figure 5 summarised for the impact category Climate Change the impacts of the different chemistries and shows the variability of impacts for each active material and from one to another.
Figure 5: Impact on climate change for the production of battery comparing their chemistry Source: Peter et al. (2016) LFP = Lithium Fer Phosphate, LFP-LTO=Lithium Fer Phosphate - Lithium Titanate Oxide, LCO=Lithium Cobalt Oxide, LCN= Lithium Cobalt Nickel, LMO= Lithium Manganese Oxide, NCM= Nickel Cobalt Manganese, NCA = Nickel Cobalt Aluminium
On average, LMO and LCO batteries have the lower effect on climate change, while LFP and NMC batteries have the most carbon-intensive production. Nevertheless, those impacts greatly depend on the energy and electricity mix used for the assessments. The impacts due to fossil energy use impact the effect on climate change in battery production to a great extent.
Other factors should help to reduce the environmental impacts of batteries. Figure 6 below illustrates for the NCA battery that key factors can help reduce the impacts of battery manufacturing. Besides less polluting electricity mix, the growing demand of BEV inducing a higher production volume, the rise of the energy density and the optimisation of the processes are expected to affect the overall climate change impacts of the battery.
Figure 6: Impacts of the manufacture of a NCA battery pack for electric vehicles (EVs) based on several factors (circles are for small production volume, triangles are for high production volume, empty symbols are for minimum energy consumption, crosses are for high production volume with a minimum energy consumption and a higher energy) Source: Phillipot et al. (2019)
Social impacts
Social impacts also represent a primary concern due to the extraction and use of critical materials that hinder the sustainability of the battery supply chain. The European Commission considers lithium and cobalt as critical raw materials. Indeed, for cobalt, child labour and unsafe mining conditions were reported for the extraction in artisanal mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The production of batteries thus requires extra care on the material raw supply, which explains the growing industry interest in chemistries that rely less on cobalt.
End-of-life management
End-of-life management could be critical to reduce the dependency on critical materials and to improve the environmental impacts of batteries. It concerns two practices:
- Battery recycling:
After it reaches its end-of-life, the battery can be recycled to recover valuable materials. The main steps of the recycling process are dismantling (optional for pyrometallurgy), shredding and metal recovery. The processes to recover metals differ. It includes pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy or direct recycling (Figure 7).
Currently, the main recycling techniques are pyrometallurgy followed by hydrometallurgy, or only hydrometallurgy (Chen et al, 2019). Each process helps the recovery of specific materials from the cell. The environmental advantages lie in recovering materials to avoid producing new materials to manufacture the battery, reducing the environmental impacts and the dependency on critical raw materials.
According to Hall et al. (2018), the potential reduction of the battery production impacts could be between 7 to 17% depending on the recycling pathways. In Belgium, one large EV battery recycling facility is implemented and led by the company Umicore. The process starts with pyrometallurgy and is followed by hydrometallurgy.
Figure 7: Description of the recycling processes Source: Chen et al. (2019)
- Battery second-life management:
Batteries from electric vehicles could be repurposed after reaching their end of life during the vehicle use phase. Indeed, the battery is still at about 70-80% of its energy capacity. One possibility is for the battery to be re-used as stationary energy storage (Figure 8). Such options are currently at a research stage. With the increase of renewables energy, it could support the electricity grid.
2nd life applications are usually combined with recycling when the repurposed battery reaches its final end of life. On a life cycle approach, the benefit of 2nd life is due to the fact that the repurposed battery avoids the manufacturing of another one for the 2nd life applications. Therefore, it helps to reduce the overall environmental impacts of the electric vehicle. The potential reduction of the overall life cycle of EV could be up to 20% (Hall et al, 2018).
Figure 8: Diagram of the Life Cycle of a battery used for second life residential applications. Source: Re2live.
The variety and complexity of end-of-life options are also due to the large variety of battery chemistry that exists, making it complex to develop a global process for all existing alternatives. Besides, the future of battery designs and technical improvements will likely impact the development of end-of-life options. Figure 9 shows the expected battery development outlook for the next decade. It confirms the rapid improvement and changes in future battery designs.
Figure 9: Outlook of the expected battery designs. Source: Batteries Europe (2021)
IEA. (2021). Trends and developments in electric vehicle markets – Global EV Outlook 2021
Slowik, P., Lutsey, N., & Hsu, C.-W. (2020). How technology, recycling and policy can mitigate supply risks to the long-term transition to zero-emission vehicles - The International Council on Clean Transportation. www.theicct.orgcommunications@theicct.org
Peters, J. F., Baumann, M., Zimmermann, B., Braun, J., & Weil, M. (2017). The environmental impact of Li-Ion batteries and the role of key parameters – A review. In Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (Vol. 67, pp. 491–506). Elsevier Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.08.039
Chen, M., Ma, X., Chen, B., Arsenault, R., Karlson, P., Simon, N., & Wang, Y. (2019). Recycling End-of-Life Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Batteries. Joule, 3(11), 2622–2646. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JOULE.2019.09.014
Hall, D., & Lutsey, N. (2018). Effects of battery manufacturing on electric vehicle life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions- The International Council on Clean Transportation. https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf
Batteries Europe. (2021). Development of reporting methodologies – European Technology and Innovation Platform. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/continuous_benchmarking_reporting_methodologies_1.pdf
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