Abstract:

With the retirement of electric vehicles, the quantity of used lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) will dramatically rise in the coming decade (EVs). The environmental effects of various terminal disposal paths for EV LIBs in China are not fully understood. The authors take representative lithium iron phosphate (LFP) power batteries as examples and carry out a bottom-up life cycle assessment (LCA). The life cycle stages of battery manufacturing, use, second life, and battery recycling are considered to conduct cradle-to-grave environmental impact analysis. To investigate the environmental benefits of the end-of-life (EoL) stage for LFP batteries, two EoL management scenarios are considered in this study. The first combines the second life application with battery recycling, and the second recycle the retired batteries directly after EV use. The result shows that the secondary application of retired LFP batteries in energy storage systems (ESSs) can effectively reduce the net environmental impact of the LIB life cycle, especially for fossil fuel depletion. When the service life of secondary use is increased from 1 to 10 years, the environmental benefits of different impact categories will increase by 0.24–4.62 times. Recycling retired LFP batteries can save more than 30% of metal resources in a direct recycling scenario. By comparison, the authors find that recycling lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NCM) batteries has greater environmental benefits than recycling LFP batteries for all impact categories. When considering the environmental benefits at the EoL stage, most life cycle environmental impact is likely to be offset or even show positive benefits if more than 50% of power batteries can be reused in ESSs after retirement.