Life Cycle Assessment of Silicon-Nanotube-Based Lithium Ion Battery for Electric Vehicles

The study presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a next-generation lithium ion battery pack using silicon nanotube anode (SiNT), nickel–cobalt-manganese oxide cathode, and lithium hexafluorophosphate electrolyte. The battery pack is characterized with 63 kWh capacity to power a midsized electric vehicle (EV) for a 320 km range. A novel LCA model is developed through the inventory analyses of the SiNT anode manufacturing conducted on the basis of our lab-scale experimentation, and the inventory of the NMC-SiNT battery manufacturing is constructed from our industrial partners’ pilot-scale battery production facilities. The upstream and downstream inventory analyses are performed through professional LCA databases and public literature. The obtained impact results of the NMC-SiNT battery are benchmarked with those of a conventional NMC-Graphite battery pack under the same driving distance per charge baseline. The results show that the NMC-SiNT battery has comparable environmental impacts with the conventional NMC-Graphite battery, with 10%–17% higher impacts in global warming potential and fossil depletion potential and 39%–56% lower impacts in human toxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, and marine toxicity. In this study, a sensitivity analysis is also performed to investigate the robustness and reliability of the LCA results. Finally, the paper conducted a scenario analysis to identify potential ways to improve the environmental performance of the NMC-SiNT battery for future sustainable development in EVs’ application.