Potential And Life Cycle Assessment Of Recycling Of Power Batteries For New Energy Vehicles

New energy vehicles are an effective way to solve the current transportation energy consumption and environmental pollution issues.China's new energy automotive market has grown rapidly since 2015 and has the largest market share in the world.Power batteries are the core components of new energy vehicles.With the rapid application of new energy vehicles,they have now entered a period of large-scale scrap.The environmental problems of power batteries recycling are becoming increasingly prominent.The research on the potential of power batteries recovery and life cycle environmental impacts is of great significance in terms of resource conservation and environmental protection of new energy vehicles.Firstly,a diffusion model was built to forecast sales of new energy vehicle in China.Sales of new energy vehicles in different scenarios were predicted.Based on the life distribution model,the future quantity of power battery scrap was predicted.Secondly,in view of typical power batteries,such as ternary lithium-ion batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries,the life cycle assessment model was used to quantify the environmental impacts.Comprehensive environmental impacts of different recycling processes were compared to recognize the key steps and major materials.Finally,overall environmental benefits were estimated under different recycling processes and their combined scenarios,which will provide the basis for the waste power batteries recycling polices.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Of the three development scenarios predicted in 2030,cumulative sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were 24.51 million~24.99 million units,cumulative amount of battery scrap was 23.40 million~20.20 million units;and cumulative sales of battery electric vehicles were 59.38 million~74.78 million units,cumulative amount of battery scrap was 27.49 million~37.21 million units.(2)The life cycle environmental impact of ternary lithium-ion batteries was about 2 times that of lithium iron phosphate batteries.The environmental impact of the ternary Li-ion batteries during the manufacturing phase was 2.5 times that of the lithium iron phosphate batteries,and the environmental impact of the lithium iron phosphate batteries during the use phase was 1.5 times that of the ternary Li-ion batteries.The main contributions were the use of nickel-cobalt-based compounds in the cathode materials and electricity consumption.(3)For the recycling phase,the secondary use processes of both batteries had the best performance,followed by the A hydrometallurgical process of ternary lithium-ion batteries,the full-component "physical" recycling process of lithium iron phosphate batteries,the B hydrometallurgical process and the combined pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process of ternary lithium-ion batteries,the hydrometallurgical process of lithium iron phosphate batteries and the pyrometallurgical process of ternary lithium-ion batteries.(4)The environmental benefits of secondary use scenario of ternary lithium-ion battery and lithium iron phosphate battery were the largest.In other combined scenarios,the environmental benefits of the two combined scenarios of the ternary lithium-ion battery combined pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process were the largest,especially when combined with the full-component "physical" recycling process of the lithium iron phosphate battery.In the combined scenarios of ternary lithium-ion battery pyrometallurgical process,the environmental benefits were negative.(5)In the future,waste power batteries recycling technology route should give priority to the secondary use and then recycling.Recycling technology polices should focus on resource and energy consumption in the key steps,as well as the type and recovery rate of recycled products.Encourage the application of lithium iron phosphate battery to its appropriate field such as large bus,and strengthen the R&D and practice of recycling technology.We need to carefully consider the environmental impact of ternary lithium battery during the manufacturing phase,and use recycled materials for production to achieve the improvement of environmental impact.