European Union regulators recently introduced targets for managing lithium-ion batteries across their life-cycle, but there's evidence from University of Melbourne research the new laws may have unintended negative consequences.
Enacted in August 2023, the battery regulations set targets for material recovery levels (ie using recycled materials during manufacture), recycling efficiency and end-of-life (EoL) battery collection rates, among other measures, to promote battery recycling activities.
However, key findings from a study conducted by Associate Professor Wen Li and his team from the newly-established Manufacturing and Industrial Systems group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering show that meeting the EU's recycled content targets by 2036 will be highly challenging for manufacturers.
“The targets will also result in higher quantity end-of-life batteries – which is the point where a battery falls below a certain failure threshold – and may therefore mean the materials will not be used to their full capacity ,” explains third year PhD candidate Haiwei Zhou, who was lead author on the study, which was published in One Earth, Cell Press’ flagship sustainability journal.
Other members of the team included Yuyao Yang (Peking University, China), Professor Jon McKechnie (University of Nottingham, UK), Professor Sebastian Thiede (University of Twente, the Netherlands), and Professor Peng Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences).
Why batteries?
Batteries are essential for achieving net-zero emissions, but their production is heavily reliant on critical metals – cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead.
Mining these metals often results in significant environmental degradation, including soil and water contamination, loss of biodiversity and human rights concerns.
And the way the metals are mined frequently strains geopolitical relations as supply chain risks can be exacerbated.
“The EU’s Batteries Regulation is an ambitious effort to mitigate these challenges by promoting the recycling of battery materials and enhancing the sustainability of battery production,” Zhou says.
Developing a comprehensive model
For this study, the researchers focused on three of the four critical raw metals designated with recycled content targets - cobalt, lithium and nickel. These three metals find applications in a variety of products such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), stainless steel and alloy. Lead was not considered in the model as it is not classified as a critical raw material by the EU.
The in-use stage considers three major market segments, the electric vehicle (EV) sector, the battery energy storage system sector and ‘others’, which includes LIB-containing products such as smartphones and laptops, with a total of 11 different battery chemistries. The EU’s batteries must all meet the recycled content targets, and once they reach their EoL, they must be collected within the EU (post-consumer waste).
While several earlier models investigated the possibility of recycling battery materials on a national or international scale, even within the EU, many of them only addressed light-duty EVs.
This model stands apart from existing research as it fully simulates the LIB demand and the relationships of the three main LIB market segments inside a single comprehensive MFA model, in addition to integrating manufacturing waste into the recycled content calculations.
What the researchers found
This research focused on four key factors including climate targets, battery chemistry, battery lifespan, and repurposing rate of EoL EV LIBs, and investigated 108 different scenarios to explore their impacts on potential recycled contents.
Key findings from the study revealed that meeting the EU's RC targets by 2036 will be highly challenging. The researchers indicate that the EU's ambitious climate targets, which drive increased demand for LIBs, will also result in a higher quantity of EoL batteries, which is the point where a battery falls below a certain failure threshold.
However, this increased demand for raw materials could lead to a significant shortage, particularly for cobalt. The EU could face a shortage of up to 10.4 kilotons of cobalt in 2036, which could increase to 16.0 kilotons under more stringent climate scenarios.
The researchers have also discovered that there may be a trade-off between achieving RC targets and promoting other sustainability measures.
“The EU’s current approach may unintentionally discourage attempts to reduce manufacturing waste, prolong battery lifespans and repurpose EoL EV batteries because the EU’s RC targets are so ambitious that they would likely fail without compromising these efforts,” Associate Professor Li said.
According to the researchers, the targets become more achievable by sustaining a high production waste rate, cutting battery lifespan from 15 years to 10 years, or lowering the rate at which spent batteries are repurposed, which will compromise the circularity of battery materials.
First published on 9 August 2024.
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