Abstract:

Electric vehicles (EVs) could play a significant role in mitigating the effect of climate change. It is expected that EVs can help in decarbonising and building a sustainable world. It is a fact that electric vehicles (EVs) are beneficial for climate protection. However, the current challenge is deciding whether to reuse an EV battery or recycle it after its first use. This paper theoretically investigates these areas, i.e., recycle and reuse. It was found that there are several commercially used recycling processes, and also some are under research to regain maximum possible materials and quantity. The concept of reusing (second life) of the battery is promising because, at the end of the first life, batteries from EVs can use in several applications such as storing energy generated from renewable sources to support the government grid. However, the cost and life-cycle analysis (LCA) demonstrated several aspects involved in battery reuse applications. Henceforth, one LCA generalised method cannot provide an optimal approach for all cases. It is important to have a detailed study on each of the battery reusing applications. Until then, it is safe to say that reusing the battery is a good option as it would give some time to recycling companies to develop cost and energy-efficient methods. The study found that it is almost impossible to develop a generalized approach for LCA impact based on the information that is currently available in the literature and market.