Life Cycle Comparison of Lithium Ion Battery Manufacturing Methods

Abstract

Although lithium ion batteries (LIB) are considered to be a promising power storage option for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), little work has been done to improve and optimize the manufacturing of LIBs from a life-cycle perspective. In this study, the environmental impacts of five commercially available LIBs based on different cathode chemistries, including LiCoO₂, LiMn₂O₄, LiCoMnO₄, LiNiMnO₄ and LiFePO₄, are examined to address the differences in material flows in the production phase of LIBs.  In addition, solid state and sol-gel synthesis pathways are investigated for each cathode materials to account for the differences between wet chemistry and dry chemistry, with a particular interest in process heat input and organic solvent use. The results indicate that using solid state pathway, LiMn₂O₄ appears to be the most environment-benign cathode material, followed by LiFePO₄. For all of the cathode materials, the environmental burdens of sol-gel pathway outweigh that of the solid state synthesis method, with organic solvent as the largest contributor. In both cases, starting materials containing nickel and cobalt are responsible for a considerable share of the environmental impacts pertinent to the manufacturing of LIBs. A comparison of the environmental impacts of anode active materials and the operational phase impacts of BEVs relative to internal combustion engine vehicles will also be presented in this talk.