Life Cycle Assessment of LFP Cathode Material Production for Power Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

To cope with the world energy crisis and global climate change, the governments of the world attach great importance to the development of new energy industry. The production and application of power lithium-ion battery also attract much attention. Based on the life cycle model we built for the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials production, the resources and energy consumption inventory of LFP cathode production was calculated. The environmental impacts of LFP production for a power lithium-ion battery were analyzed. The results showed that the synthesis process of LFP production was the key production stage and accounted for 52.93% of the accumulated environmental burden, followed by Li2CO3 preparation, (NH2)2HPO4 preparation and Fe3O4 preparation, which accounted for 20.90, 18.90 and 7.27% of overall environmental burdens respectively. The key impact categories of LFP production were human toxicity, fossil depletion, climate change and acidification, which accounted for 77.62, 6.36, 5.21 and 4.19% of total environmental impact, respectively. The climate change potential of LFP production in different stages was compared emphatically. The Li2CO3 preparation was the key stage for the climate change potential, which accounted for 50.59% of greenhouse gases emissions. The optimized synthesis process could be conducive to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the environmental burden caused by the production of lithium iron phosphate.