Making Lithium Ion Batteries Cleaner
It is no secret that lithium-ion batteries will play a central role in energy storage and electric vehicle development. However, to make this critical technology more environmentally friendly, improvements need to be made in both manufacturing and end-of-life. Currently, creating lithium-ion batteries is carbon-intensive and done primarily in China. In fact, a report by the MIT Climate Portal explains that the production of lithium-ion batteries is more material-intensive than combustion engines. The end-of-life process likewise needs to be improved, both to prevent battery-related fires and accidents as well as to preserve and reuse the valuable minerals found within the batteries.
The most common lithium-ion batteries fall into three categories, meaning that improving production and end-of-life will need to be adaptable to fit each variation. Fortunately, these categories, lithium cobalt oxide, lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide, and lithium iron phosphate, include many of the same materials. By improving the extraction of materials such as lithium required for all the batteries and providing a higher recovery rate, each battery's carbon footprint can be lessened. Higher recovery rates can increase the useful life of these materials while reducing reliance on imported goods and carbon-heavy industries, including mining.
Most of lithium is extracted through hard rock mining, a particularly carbon-intensive industry (15 tonnes of CO2 are emitted per tonne of lithium). The extraction of lithium from underground reservoirs, on the other hand, requires significantly more water. To compound these impacts, approximately 77% of lithium-ion batteries are produced in China, and China's power plants are still heavily reliant on coal. It remains unsurprising that the carbon offset of producing battery-grade lithium is high.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report in 2024 detailing the recycling process that must be put in place to recover valuable materials and prevent mishandling. Several steps need to be put in place to prepare for what will be a flood of end-of-life batteries. Creating collection outlets wherein retailers or e-waste businesses could identify, disassemble, and sort batteries before recycling. Once the shredding process has occurred, different ways of recovering valuable metals out of the resulting “black mass" have been developed. These recovered materials would then be made into new batteries using essentially the same process as with initial battery construction.
In the case of increasing efficiency at the front end, U.S. company Sylvatex is improving upon existing lithium-ion battery production by introducing new cathode active material scales. Because this material represents 50-70% of the battery cost, an improved cathode material could significantly benefit both efficiency and cost. Sylvatex founder and CEO Virginia Klausmeier explained the impact of enhanced cathode development on lithium-ion batteries and how this could prevent future waste. She described it as a concept she referred to as “future-proofing," meaning the system's flexibility to develop more than one output, which offers several advantages over traditional production methods and allows for greater flexibility. Additionally, these new processes created by Sylvatex require significantly less energy while eliminating the previous need for water and providing longer-term use for their materials.
Improving the production of lithium-ion batteries during production is important, as it provides a high recovery at the battery's end of life. An end-of-life process that recovers most of the materials is crucial as these batteries contain materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese, which could all have a second useful life. Not only are these materials valuable for the battery industry, but are classified as crucial materials, emphasizing their importance to both the US economy and national security. Along with the economic advantages of recycling comes the reduced fear of problematic disposal of batteries and potentially hazardous results. The EPA has clarified that mishandled end-of-life batteries could catch fire or explode.
It is worth noting that no matter where the battery is produced or through which process, it will inevitably be better than no battery at all. Electric vehicles are unquestionably better than their counterparts. However, that does not mean that improving production and recycling is unnecessary. Instead, it will only become more necessary as the uses of lithium-ion batteries continue to expand.
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