Slide 3:

Lithium Ion batteries, dont need a special introduction, as everyone carries them in their pockets
and bags as mobile phones, laptops and as other consumer electronics.

Though there are many batteries in the market , as you can see from the below chart, due to high
specific energy , good capacity retention, long life cycle, lithium ion batteries are mostly used.

Slide 4:

But Lithium-ion battery is predicted to consume a significant amount of metal resources, as you can
see them from the figure. LIBs have an average life of one to three years before being considered
waste and if disposed directly, it is not beneficial to the environment.

Hence recycling is being considered as a sustainable option for mitigating environmental impacts.

Slide 5:

Though there is an assumption that recycling is advantageous and beneficial to the environment, a
quantitative result is always needed.

Hence a life cycle assessment is performed by means of LCA software tool by ANL GREET

Slide 6:

So, the goal of this paper is to carry out a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) between different
recycling processes to better understand the associated environmental impacts. So, for that, let us
review the recycling methods to recover the spent batteries.

Mechanical processes or the pre-treatment process is to dismantle and sort the components based
on the physical properties.

Pyrometallurgy is a high temperature treatment, by means of pyrolysis.

Hydrometallurgical is a special process which uses acids or base to leach metals into solution

Direct physical process is an important technology to recover cathode materials

Slide 7:

So, the first step in Life cycle assessment is to define a system boundary, which is shown in the
figure.

It includes various phases like raw material acquisition, production, use and End-of-Life (EOL).

The recycling processes is the main focus of this paper, falls under EOL stage. Hence this EOL phase
has to be modelled, because variation of environmental impacts depends on EOL modelling.
Slide 8:

The EOL Moedelling is categorized into , Cut off approach and EOl recycling approach.

In Cut off approach, the recyclable materials are not modelled which will then recirculate into new
production. Instead, only the collection and the pre-treatment stage in the battery recycling are only
included .

In simple words, from the figure , we can see, the recovery and upgrading of recyclable materials
are CUT OFF from the product system and that no credits are awarded for providing secondary raw
materials into the same or other product systems.

Lets say we have X amount of aluminium from Secondary input

Remaining 1-X are obtained from the primary material extraction.

Hence this implies an overall reduced production impact for products with recycled content,

Slide 9:

In the EOL recycling approach, the material recovery is explicitly modelled instead of being cut off.

the recovered quantity of a material will directly replace an equivalent amount of primary material
in the product system, or in a different product system, therefore reducing the need for primary
material production and its environmental burdens. Hence, these avoided impacts are credited to
the product studied in the EOL stage as negative impacts.

Slide 10:

EOL modelling can also be categorized in to CLOSED and OPEN loop recycling.

In closed-loop recycling, recovered material is recirculated back to the same product system, i.e.,
into the same production (or type of production) that made the product from which the material
was recovered. An example could be lithium from a scrapped LIB, which is recycled into a LIB of the
same type.

this would occur if the broken arrow representing scrap going out of waste treatment is connected
back upstream directly to the other broken arrow entering the recycling and upgrading process.

In open-loop recycling, the recycled material is instead used in a different product, an example being
the use of cobalt from recycled LIBs used in cobalt magnets for sensors and electric motors.

But this open-loop recycling is typically not functional, because, for example, shredding, often
involves some degree of material intermixing and dispersion of metals present in small quantities
into recovered metals, resulting in materials with lower quality, hence open-loop recycling has for
long been regarded as a challenge.
Hence the cutoff approach described above being the simplest to apply and traditionally the most
common and it always pairs with open-loop recycling, since the recycled material feeds into the
larger market for recycled materials rather than going directly back to the production.

Whereas, the EOL recycling approach can be modelled both as the closed- or open-loop type
depending on type of LCA.

Slide 11: Recycling Process Comparison

Here we can see two charts.

On the left a comparison between resource use and environmental emissions of battery production
and recycling using two systems, i.e., hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy, with the virgin battery
production.

It can be noted that the pyrometallurgical system can limit GHG emissions (23%) and primary energy
consumption (56%) but has a high air pollutant and electricity demand owing to combustion, coke
production, and recovered slag, respectively. At the same time, the pyrometallurgical system
demonstrates clear advantages with reference to water consumption.

Whereas, hydrometallurgy attains high electricity consumption and less air pollution.

Now on the right side, based on total energy consumptions, it can be noted that up to 48% of the
total energy consumption can be limited when LiCoO2, Cu, Al, anode, and electrolyte are recovered
by using direct physical recycling because of the performance at low temperature without wasting
additional chemicals

Slide 12:

From the impact analysis, two environmental impact categories, Global Warming Potential
(GWP) and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) were selected and compared. The results show 15%
net reduction in these impacts over the LIBs life cycle.