Life Cycle Assessment of the Battery Cell Production: Using a Modular Material and Energy Flow Model to Assess Product and Process Innovations

Abstract

Battery cells and their production processes are developing continuously toward higher efficiencies. Conventional life cycle inventories (LCIs) applied in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies are either numerical or parametrized, which inhibits their application to changing developments in battery research. Therefore, this article presents an approach to develop modular material and energy flow (MEF) models for battery cell production. The modular MEF model is linked to the Brightway2 framework to generate LCI for six different innovations: 1) extrusion-based slurry preparation; 2) water-based electrode production; 3) dry coating; 4) thick electrodes; 5) change of active material; and 6) a combination of innovations. The results reveal that the modeled process and product innovations, particularly the dry coating process, can contribute to a reduction of more than 15% in CO2-eq emissions. With the presented approach, it is possible to model process and product innovations in a common environment, which enables a comparative analysis under changing model premises with reusable and adaptable models at the process level. This reduces the effort to evaluate process variations significantly and contributes to the use of LCA as an engineering tool.