Study Finds Environmental Impact of Li-ion Battery for Electric Vehicles is Relatively Small

A team from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) compiled a detailed lifecycle inventory of a Li-ion battery and produced a rough lifecycle analysis (LCA) of battery-electric vehicle mobility. Their study, published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, showed that the environmental burdens of mobility are dominated by the operation phase regardless of whether a gasoline-fueled ICEV or a European electricity-fueled BEV is used.

Compared to a reference internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), use of a BEV in transport results in lower environmental burdens as assessed by four different methods, they found. However, the PM10, NOx and SO2 emissions caused by E-mobility were higher compared to mobility with an ICEV.

The share of the total environmental impact of E-mobility caused by the battery (measured in Ecoindicator 99 points) is 15%. The impact caused by the extraction of lithium for the components of the Li-ion battery is less than 2.3% (Ecoindicator 99 points). The major contributor to the environmental burden caused by the battery is the supply of copper and aluminum for the production of the anode and the cathode, plus the required cables or the battery management system.

The researchers modeled a LiMn2O4 battery, assuming that manganese will in the near future be substituted for the nickel and cobalt commonly used currently. They also performed calculations on different cathode materials containing nickel, cobalt or iron-phosphate in order to check the sensitivity of the results.

The electric vehicle studied was comparable to a Volkswagen Golf in size and power with a range of around 200 km (124 miles) per charge with an assumed lifetime of 150,000 km (93,000 miles). They assumed that 14.1 kWh of electric energy is needed per 100 km to propel a Golf-class vehicle with an overall efficiency of 80% (including charging losses and recuperation gains) in a standard driving cycle (New European Driving Cycle, NEDC)