Environmental life cycle assessment of the production in China of lithium-ion batteries with nickel-cobalt-manganese cathodes utilising novel electrode chemistries

The electricity source is a strong link between the carbon footprint of a LIB and its production location.

“The electricity source is a strong link between the CF of a LIB and its production location (Kallitsis et al., 2020;Linder et al., 2023).”

The production carbon footprint of a LIB is primarily made up of energy contributions, traced to cathode active material production and cell manufacturing, and material contributions associated with upstream mining/refining of key battery materials.

“The production CF of a LIB is primarily made up of energy contributions, traced to cathode active material production and cell manufacturing, and material contributions associated with upstream mining/refining of key battery materials (Chordia et al., 2021;Dai et al., 2019;Kallitsis et al., 2020).”

This is in line with published literature claiming that, on average, batteries manufactured in Europe or North America have a lower CF than those manufactured in China.

“This is in line with published literature claiming that, on average, batteries manufactured in Europe or North America have a lower CF than those manufactured in China (Kallitsis et al., 2020;Kelly et al., 2020;Linder et al., 2023).”

Results falling outside of the whisker values of Fig. 5, such as 53 (Yu et al., 2018) or 20 (Xiong et al., 2019) kg CO2-eq kWh-1 for LIBs produced in China, have been reported to exhibit life cycle inventory inconsistencies.

“Results falling outside of the whisker values of Fig. 5, such as 53 (Yu et al., 2018) or 20 (Xiong et al., 2019) kg CO 2 -eq kWh -1 for LIBs produced in China, have been reported to exhibit life cycle inventory inconsistencies (Kallitsis et al., 2020).”

Significantly higher CF values reported by Kallitsis et al. (2020) and Ellingsen et al. (2014), than the range of 46.3-106.1 kg CO2-eq kWh-1 reported here for South Korea, have been traced to the fact that they refer to pilot-scale facilities rather than Giga-scale factories considered herein, with the former resulting in almost three-times higher energy demand for cell manufacturing.

“Significantly higher CF values reported by Kallitsis et al. (2020) and Ellingsen et al. (2014), than the range of 46.3-106.1 kg CO 2 -eq kWh -1 reported here for South Korea, have been traced to the fact that they refer to pilot-scale facilities rather than Giga-scale factories considered herein, with the former resulting in almost three-times higher energy demand for cell manufacturing (Kallitsis”