Global warming potential of lithium-ion battery cell production: Determining influential primary and secondary raw material supply routes

This study assesses the global warming potential (GWP) impacts of lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling and subsequent cell production from primary and secondary raw materials. Furthermore, the study proposes multiple allocation strategies for the GWP impacts of LIB recycling, which range from 18 to 22 kg CO₂ equivalent per kilowatt-hour NMC111 and NMC811 battery packs to determine the environmental burdens of secondary raw materials. The results demonstrate that using secondary raw materials could ideally reduce NMC111 and NMC811 cell production GWP by 30 %. In practice, GWP impact reductions will vary depending on factors, such as the contributions of primary production and recycling to battery raw material supply, and the market share of the different technologies employed within both primary production and recycling.

Based on estimates for the availability of recycled raw materials to the European battery value chain, the sensitivity analysis methods identified NMC hydroxide, nickel sulfate, and battery-grade graphite as the most influential recycled raw materials on NMC111 cell production GWP. These materials received importance scores of 59%, 8%, and 6% respectively. Primary supply routes for cobalt sulfate received the highest importance score, followed by the primary supply routes of lithium carbonate and nickel sulfate. For NMC811 cells, nickel sulfate (34%), NMC hydroxide (27%) and graphite (8%) were identified as the most influential recycled raw materials, with the primary supply routes of nickel sulfate, lithium hydroxide and battery-grade graphite being the most influential.