Life cycle assessment of high nickel ternary lithium (NCM811) power batteries

ABSTRACT

The rapid growth in the ownership of electric vehicles has led to a rapid expansion in the installed capacity of power batteries. While electric vehicles reduce emissions during use, they also bring a huge environmental burden. This study focuses on the NCM811 battery, a major component of electric vehicles. By analyzing the three stages of production, use and recycling of power batteries, the energy consumption and emissions of each stage are determined. The results find that the production stage of the battery is the stage with the highest environmental impact throughout its life cycle, while the recycling stage effectively offset some of the environmental impact, as well as identifying the battery materials that has the highest environmental impact during the production process. In addition, different power generation mix and different cathode chemistry ratios are varied to perform sensitivity analyses. Based on these findings, recommendations for the development of lithium-ion batteries are made.

KEYWORDS:

• Life cycle assessment
• NCM811
• environmental impact
• energy consumption
• GWP

Acknowledgements

This research presented within this article is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 61903114) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. Jz2021HGQA0286).

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Data availability statement

The authors do not have permission to share data.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No. Jz2021HGQA0286]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [NO. 61903114].