Life cycle assessment of long life lithiumelectrode for electric vehicle batteries : 5Ah cell

This report contains a life cycle assessment of a 5Ah lithium battery cell with metallic lithium in the anode. It was performed in the context of the Swedish TriLi - Longlife lithium electrodes for EV and HEV batteries - project. The 5 Ah cell has been analyzed from cradle to grave, i.e., from raw material production over own manufacturing, use in a typical application and end-of-life. The study aims to highlight environmental hotspots with lithium batteries with metallic lithium in the anode in order to improve them as well as to verify environmental benefits with lithium batteries in vehicles. A number of LCAs of different depth and detail will be carried out in the TriLiproject, each following more or less the steps: Provision of preliminary cell design and data Screening LCA Workshop to present and discuss screening LCA results Revised cell design and data and recalculation of LCA Workshop to present and discuss LCA-results of “final” cell design Manufacturing of cell and testing of cell Calculation of final LCA if needed This report concerns the final LCA of a 5 Ah cell. The results indicate that: LCA may be very helpful in the design process of batteries. An example is that the amount of lithium was reduced to a quarter without affecting battery performance, following that the screening LCA results pointed towards the lithium metal as the major source of climate impact. The largest non-recyclable contributor to climate impact and abiotic depletion in the production phase is the assembly energy. It therefore warrants special attention in further efforts to minimize cell environmental impacts. The cell efficiency is very important to consider. For η=0.95-0.5 electric losses range from 5 to 50% per delivered kWh. These losses are transformed into heat that may require further energy to get rid of. Use phase weight related losses are quite low and become lower the heavier the vehicle is, i.e., battery weight is not all that important (efficiency is, for example, much more important). At 4000-6000 discharge cycles and (η=0.9), production level climate impacts and use phase climate impacts are at the same level, assuming West European electricity mix for the propulsion. However, with carbonlean electricity for the propulsion, use phase climate impacts are much smaller and not at all dominant. Abiotic depletion is dominated by metals depletion related to electricity distribution, not production. Therefore, abiotic depletion is not all assensitive to the choice of electricity mix as climate impact is.the Swedish TriLi - Longlife lithium electrodes for EV and HE