Toward a cell‐chemistry specific life cycle assessment of lithium‐ion battery recycling processes

TLDR

Existing life‑cycle assessment studies of lithium‑ion battery recycling are used to parametrize pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process models that can be applied to various cell chemistries, showing that maximum material recovery is not always environmentally optimal and that treatment must be tailored to each chemistry. The authors benchmark state‑of‑the‑art pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling against an advanced hydrometallurgical process, modeled from primary data, to quantify environmental impact reductions across cell chemistries. Recycling generally lowers environmental impacts, with advanced hydrometallurgical treatment delivering the greatest benefit for LiNiMnCoO₂ and LiNiCoAlO₂ batteries via cobalt and nickel recovery; for LiFePO₄ cells, recycling may not be advantageous and can even increase impacts, whereas for other chemistries it can reduce net impact below that of cells made from abundant materials.

Abstract

Abstract On the basis of a review of existing life cycle assessment studies on lithium‐ion battery recycling, we parametrize process models of state‐of‐the‐art pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling, enabling their application to different cell chemistries, including beyond‐lithium batteries such as sodium‐ion batteries. These processes are used as benchmark for evaluating an advanced hydrometallurgical recycling process, which is modeled on the basis of primary data obtained from a recycling company, quantifying the potential reduction of environmental impacts that can be achieved by the recycling of different cell chemistries. Depending on the cell chemistry, recycling can reduce significantly the potential environmental impacts of battery production. The highest benefit is obtained via advanced hydrometallurgical treatment for lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide‐type batteries, mainly because of the recovery of cobalt and nickel. Especially under resource depletion aspects, recycling of these cells can reduce their impact to an extent that even leads to a lower “net impact” than that of cells made from majorly abundant and cheap materials like lithium iron phosphate, which shows a more favorable performance when recycling is disregarded. For these cells, recycling does not necessarily provide benefits but can rather cause additional environmental impacts. This indicates that maximum material recovery might not always be favorable under environmental aspects and that, especially for the final hydrometallurgical treatment, the process would need to be adapted to the specific cell chemistry, if one wants to obtain maximum environmental benefit.