Shaping China's Automotive Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling System to Meet the Retirement Wave: Insights from Integrated...

Area of Science:

• Battery recycling
• Sustainable manufacturing
• Circular economy

Background:

• China's electric vehicle growth leads to significant battery waste.
• Limited data exists on optimizing battery retirement networks and their environmental impact.

Purpose of the Study:

• To integrate battery retirement data, network optimization, and life-cycle assessment.
• To minimize total system costs and quantify environmental impacts of battery recycling.

Main Methods:

• Comparing a hydrometallurgical baseline (Hydro) with a high-voltage pulsed-discharge (HVPD) method.
• Modeling 10.4 Mt/yr of retirements from 2040-2050.
• Analyzing cost-optimal network designs and life-cycle impacts for different pathways.

Main Results:

• HVPD pathway reduces total costs by ~10% compared to the Hydro pathway.
• HVPD supports centralized hub-and-spoke network structures, while Hydro favors distributed networks.
• Recycling reduces environmental impacts like global warming potential and toxicity compared to primary production.

Conclusions:

• Shifting battery components from packs to powder optimizes recycling networks.
• This approach reduces overall system costs and minimizes life-cycle environmental impacts.
• HVPD pathway offers significant cost and environmental benefits for electric vehicle battery recycling.