Circular economy strategies for electric vehicle batteries reduce reliance on raw materials

Abstract

The wide adoption of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) will require increased natural resources for the automotive industry. The expected rapid increase in batteries could result in new resource challenges and supply chain risks. To strengthen the resilience and sustainability of automotive supply chains and reduce primary resource requirements, circular economy strategies are needed. Here we illustrate how these strategies can reduce primary raw material extraction i.e. cobalt supplies. Material flow analysis is applied to understand current and future flows of cobalt embedded in EVs batteries across the European Union. A reference scenario is presented and compared with four strategies: technology driven substitution and technology driven reduction of cobalt, new business models to stimulate battery reuse/recycling and policy driven strategy to increase recycling. We find that new technologies provide the most promising strategies to reduce the reliance on cobalt significantly but could result in burden shifting such as an increase in nickel demand. To avoid the latter, technological developments should therefore be combined with an efficient recycling system. We conclude that more ambitious circular economy strategies, at both government and business levels, are urgently needed to address current and future resource challenges across the supply chain successfully.

Financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling

“…This bears the risk of impeding the establishment of a large enough recycling sector capable of dealing with the predicted amount of EoL batteries. Moreover, the lack of recycling profitability might lead to an increased export of EVs or batteries to countries without strong hazardous waste legislation, either legally for second-hand use or illegally ( Baars et al., 2020 ; Green, 2017 ; Skeete et al., 2020 ; Steward et al., 2019 ). It has been estimated that the latter is the case for 30% of vehicles in the UK ( Skeete et al., 2020 ).…”

Challenges in Ecofriendly Battery Recycling and Closed Material Cycles: A Perspective on Future Lithium Battery Generations

“…Establishing closed material cycles for batteries on the basis of scalable production and recycling technologies is a central component for CO 2 -reduced or CO 2 -neutral battery cell production and thus for electromobility, the provision of energy in household and handicraft appliances, as well as for the stationary storage of renewable energies [7,72,73]. As a matter of fact, closed material cycles in batteries are the only way to convert carbon-based energy sources into sustainably generated electrical energy in ecological, economic, and social contexts.…”

“…Consequently, a circular economy for traction batteries, i.e., lithium-ion battery systems is demanded by the European Union as written in the Battery Directive 2006/66/EC and [13] as well as the Circular Economy Initiative Deutschland (CEID) of the National Academy of Science and Engineering in Germany [14]. In addition, many research studies are being done on this topic while highlighting the challenges that still exist and need to be overcome [17,21,52,72]. Such closed circles improve the sustainability of lithium-ion batteries; they especially decrease the carbon footprint, decrease the material costs, and ensure secondary material resources for Europe [73,74].…”

Recovering large-scale battery aging dataset with machine learning

“…For examples, fast charging scheme could be designed for different aging conditions to balance the charging speed and degradation rate. 8 , 9 , 10 Likewise, users can get early warnings of the battery failure, 11 , 12 determine whether a battery should be replaced, 13 , 14 and if the retired batteries could be adopted for the less-demanding applications to allow cascade utilization. 15 , 16 , 17 Most of these data-based applications, by nature, require a large amount of available battery aging data.…”