Lithium Ion Battery Analysis On Material Synthesis And Environmental Performance Through Life Cycle Assessment

Lithium-ion battery is one of the most widely used secondary batteries all over the world. The development of Lithium-ion battery techniques has gained much attention from the society. The technical development also brings new materials and new processes. However the environmental studies about these materials and processes can’t catch up with the technology development. The studies about the environmental impacts of lithium-ion batteries and related materials were few. Therefore, this study focused on environmental impacts of the lithium ion battery with different cathode materials. Life cycle assessment was implemented to evaluate the environmental impacts of lithium-ion batteries. The impact factors and damage types have been identified by the IMPACT 2002+ method and ReCiPe method. The batteries with LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2, Li1.2Ni0.2Mn0.6O2, LiFe O2-(1-x)Li2MnO3 and LiFePO4 materials were studied as well as their synthetic processes. And the life cycle environmental impact scores of these batteries were 275 Pt, 129 Pt, 142 Pt and 100 Pt separately. The relationship between the environmental impacts and the synthetic processes was identified by the comparison of different processes. The life cycle inventories consisted of both lab-scale data and industrial data in details, which can support sustainability researches of Li-ion batteries and the relative materials. Cathode manufacturing generates the main damage to the environment in the phase of battery production. The energy consumption of battery use contributes to the major environmental impacts of the whole life cycle. The improvement of electricity mix have positive effects on reducing green house gas emission and environmental damages from Li-ion batteries and electric vehicles. No-cobalt materials have less damage to human health and ecosystem than the materials with cobalt inside. Decreasing the using of heavy metal in Li-ion batteries should be an important target of battery development.In this study, the life cycle study about lithium-ion batteries was expanded. A comprehensive assessment system about lithium-ion batteries was built in this study. The assessment method was tested by the calculation of 5 battery samples. The lithium-ion battery with LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 cathode materials had the highest factor score(0.2) among all the batteries and its comprehensive performance was the worst considering the environmental performance. The results of the comprehensive assessment had a good match comparing with the real situation about these batteries. The results of life cycle perspective can support the market prospect of Li-rich materials. The Battery Performance Evaluation System is an approach about the assessment of different batteries. These conclusions in this paper provide several approaches to improve the environmental performance of lithium ion battery.