Analysis of materials and energy flows of different lithium ion traction batteries

¹ Helmholtz Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany
e-mail: balint.simon@kit.edu
² KIT Institute for Technology Assessment and System Analysis, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany

Received: 18 February 2013
Accepted: 18 February 2013

Abstract

The increasing proportion of renewable resources in electricity mixes, the decentralization of energy supply and the growing use of electric vehicles demands the challenging development of reliable, cost effective and flexible energy storage technologies. One option are electrochemical energy storage systems with high specific power and high specific energy density. One of the most promising electrochemical energy storage systems is the lithium-ion batteries (LIB) which are customized regarding size, weight, specific energy and specific capacity what makes batteries ready for operation under different conditions such as emerging electric power systems, grid support or electric mobility [1]. Even though the lithium-Ion technology for traction batteries is not yet widely applied, experiments and first use experiences show that it is a promising electric energy storage system for electric mobility. However, the environmental impacts of battery production, use and recycling are not well understood. To gain a better understanding about the ecological properties of LIBs material and energy flow analysis (MEFA) is conducted. The MEFA defines the possible sources and consumers of relevant materials, substances, pollutants and energy flows [2, 3]. The presented study analyses the consumed materials and energy as well as the emitted substances and waste heat of different LIBs. The main focus of the MEFA is on the production phase and includes active and passive components and material such as metal-salts, electrode materials, other functional metals (e.g. current collectors, casing, etc.), plastics (e.g. separator) and electrolytes [4--7] and on energy consumption as well.