The Circular Path Towards Decarbonising the Li-Ion Battery Value Chain

The rapid transition to clean energy and electric mobility has led to an unprecedented demand for Li-ion batteries (LIBs), necessitating a comprehensive decarbonisation of their entire value chain to meet climate goals 1. This talk takes a holistic view at the LIB production and recycling system to explore cradle-to-cradle decarbonisation strategies. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework is used to quantify the comparative importance of developments in battery manufacturing, raw material sourcing and battery recycling in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG) arising from the globally-distributed LIB value chain. On the upstream side, sourcing low-carbon materials is found to reduce the GHG footprint of LIB manufacturing by up to a factor of 4, depending on raw material type and source, and battery chemistry 2. The geographical links between battery Gigafactory location and GHG emissions are also explored, revealing substantial differences between US states, Chinese provinces and European countries, traced to the carbon intensity of electricity generation 2. On the downstream side, hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical treatment options for end-of-life LIBs are shown to achieve a GHG benefit of up to 40%, when recovered materials are circulated back to LIB production 3. The battery production and recycling LCA models are integrated to present a comprehensive sensitivity analysis on the effectiveness of LIB recycling in reducing GHG emissions. This is shown to depend on battery chemistry, with lithium iron phosphate material recovery achieving lower benefits, but also on the geographical specificity of key operations, directly affecting the type of materials being displaced through secondary routes. The talk concludes with an outlook to 2035, presenting scenarios to reduce the GHG emissions of the battery value chain through technological developments, improvements in manufacturing and the establishment of circularity. References 1 Kallitsis, E., Lander, L., Edge, J., Bravo Diaz, L., Brown, A., Kelsall, G., Offer, G., Korre, A., 2022. Safe and sustainable lithium-ion batteries. Imperial College London-Energy Futures Lab. 2 Kallitsis, E., Lindsay, J., Chordia, M., Wu, B., Offer, G., Edge, J. , 2023. Think global act local: the dependency of global lithium-ion battery emissions on production location and material sources. Preprint available at Research Square. 3 Kallitsis, E., Korre, A. and Kelsall, G.H., 2022. Life cycle assessment of recycling options for automotive Li-ion battery packs. Journal of Cleaner Production , 371 , p.133636.