The environmental impact and eco-efficiency analysis of retired power battery recycling in China

Abstract

With the rapid development of electric vehicles (EVs) industry, recycling of the retired power batteries (RPBs) has become a significant topic with the concern of EVs sustainable development. This study evaluates the environmental impact and economic performance of RPBs recycling in China, including four recycling technologies for ternary lithium iron (NCM) batteries and two recycling technologies for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries with different echelon use rates, based on life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCC) methods. The concept of eco-efficiency is innovatively introduced to further analyze the relationship between environmental impact and economic performance of RPBs recycling. Results show that both NCM and LFP batteries recycling exhibit significant environmental and economic benefits, which are both significantly affected by the echelon use rate. Under the current situation, LFP recycling with higher echelon use rate shows better environmental and economic benefits than NCM recycling. But if recycled with the same echelon use rate, NCM recycling exhibits better eco-efficiency performance than LFP recycling. For technologies, NCM recycling with pyro-hydrometallurgy and LFP recycling with physical method exhibit the best environmental and economic benefits. However, from the viewpoint of eco-efficiency, NCM recycling with hydrometallurgy A and LFP recycling with hydrometallurgy perform the best eco-efficiency. Overall, further improving the echelon use rate (especially for LFP batteries) would significantly enhance the environmental, economic and eco-efficiency performance of RPBs recycling. The results identify the importance of recycling technology selection in the overall environmental and economic performance of RPBs recycling process. The study contributes to identifying the critical role of echelon use rate and recycling technology selection as well as the key affecting factors, so as to improve the overall environmental and economic benefits of RPBs recycling in China.