Material system analysis: A novel multilayer system approach to correlate EU flows and stocks of Li‐ion batteries and their raw materials

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) will play a crucial role in achieving decarbonization and reducing greenhouse gases. If the EU wants to be competitive in the global market of LIBs, it has to ensure a sustainable and secure supply of the raw materials needed for the manufacturing of these batteries. Limited understanding of how the battery material cycles are linked with raw materials supply chains may hinder policy measures targeting the set-up of a domestic supply chain in the EU since no precise information on where to intervene will be available. The novelty of this work lies in a multilayer system approach developed to reveal interlinkages between the flows of five raw materials contained in LIBs (cobalt, lithium, manganese, natural graphite, and nickel) in the EU.This was achieved by aligning material system analysis datasets of raw materials contained in LIBs with datasets on stocks and flows of this type of batteries in the EU. The results demonstrate the EU's strong import dependency on LIBs and battery raw materials. The EU recycling of lithium and natural graphite is low/nonexistent hindering the sustainable supply of these materials. The results also show that the majority of battery materials are increasingly accumulated in use or hoarding stocks. The proposed approach is designed to help identify bottlenecks and possible solutions to increase the efficiency of the EU LIB system, which could go unnoticed if each material supply chain were examined individually. This study also highlights how the lessons learned can support EU resource-management policies.

Material system analysis: Characterization of flows, stocks, and performance indicators of manganese, nickel, and natural graphite in the EU, 2012–2016

“…Ultimately, enhancing the resilience of recycling industry in the EU, which is currently far from ideal performance for the targeted materials, requires an improved understanding of the interlinkages between these materials and it introduces a new facet to supply constraints that should be further investigated to achieve full representation of elemental presence in modern society and set leverages for driving viable patterns of material production and consumption. As part of the manuscript series this work belongs to, a related work of the authors has applied a multi‐material perspective to investigate flows of cobalt, lithium, manganese, nickel, and natural graphite in LIBs (Matos et al., 2021).…”

“…The manuscript series discussing the related outcomes consists of four papers, three of which focus on individual raw materials plus one paper applying a multi‐material perspective to investigate flows and stocks of cobalt, lithium, manganese, nickel, and natural graphite in LIBs. As part of the battery raw materials manuscripts series (León et al., 2021; Lundhaug et al., 2021; Matos et al., 2021), this work discusses the MSA framework applied to manganese, nickel, and natural graphite.…”

Material system analysis: Functional and nonfunctional cobalt in the EU, 2012–2016

“…Table 1 shows a brief description of the indicators. More details about the indicators and their equations are available in the Supporting Information and the paper about the multi‐layer system assessment (Matos et al., 2021).…”

“…The summary results related to these five raw materials were published in Matos, Ciacci, et al (2020). In addition, four scientific papers were developed, three of them for the single materials and one for a multilayer system assessment (Ciacci et al, 2021;Lundhaug et al, 2021;Matos et al, 2021). This manuscript is one of the scientific papers related to single materials.…”

LAYERS: A Decision-Support Tool to Illustrate and Assess the Supply and Value Chain for the Energy Transition

“…Material system analyses of CRM are increasingly established to understand the complexity of CRM across the supply and value chain. Several studies utilize this approach to trace the national, regional, or global flows of a single material such as cobalt [42][43][44] or several materials [45,46] to map out the origin of raw materials, trade relations, and potentials for secondary recovery. Such an approach could therefore be useful as a decisionsupport tool, which aims to offer a mechanism through which interested stakeholders can interact with different models and datasets in many complicated decision-making situations [47].…”