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Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach

There are several recycling methods to treat discharged lithium-ion batteries, mostly based on pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical approaches. Some of them are promising, showing high recovery efficiency (over 90%) of strategic metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. However, technological...

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Autores principales: Fahimi, Ario, Zanoletti, Alessandra, Cornelio, Antonella, Mousa, Elsayed, Ye, Guozhu, Frontera, Patrizia, Depero, Laura Eleonora, Bontempi, Elza
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9737978/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36500023
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15238527
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author Fahimi, Ario
Zanoletti, Alessandra
Cornelio, Antonella
Mousa, Elsayed
Ye, Guozhu
Frontera, Patrizia
Depero, Laura Eleonora
Bontempi, Elza
author_facet Fahimi, Ario
Zanoletti, Alessandra
Cornelio, Antonella
Mousa, Elsayed
Ye, Guozhu
Frontera, Patrizia
Depero, Laura Eleonora
Bontempi, Elza
author_sort Fahimi, Ario
collection PubMed
description There are several recycling methods to treat discharged lithium-ion batteries, mostly based on pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical approaches. Some of them are promising, showing high recovery efficiency (over 90%) of strategic metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. However, technological efficiency must also consider the processes sustainability in terms of environmental impact. In this study, some recycling processes of spent lithium-ion batteries were considered, and their sustainability was evaluated based on the ESCAPE “Evaluation of Sustainability of material substitution using CArbon footPrint by a simplifiEd approach” approach, which is a screening tool preliminary to the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The work specifically focuses on cobalt recovery comparing the sustainability of using inorganic or organic acid for the leaching of waste derived from lithium-ion batteries. Based on the possibility to compare different processes, for the first time, some considerations about technologies optimization have been done, allowing proposing strategies able to save chemicals. In addition, the energy mix of each country, to generate electricity has been considered, showing its influence on the sustainability evaluation. This allows distinguishing the countries using more low-carbon sources (nuclear and renewables) for a share of the electricity mix, where the recycling processes result more sustainable. Finally, this outcome is reflected by another indicator, the eco-cost from the virtual pollution model 99′ proposed by Vogtländer, which integrates the monetary estimation of carbon footprint.
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spelling pubmed-97379782022-12-11 Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach Fahimi, Ario Zanoletti, Alessandra Cornelio, Antonella Mousa, Elsayed Ye, Guozhu Frontera, Patrizia Depero, Laura Eleonora Bontempi, Elza Materials (Basel) Article There are several recycling methods to treat discharged lithium-ion batteries, mostly based on pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical approaches. Some of them are promising, showing high recovery efficiency (over 90%) of strategic metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. However, technological efficiency must also consider the processes sustainability in terms of environmental impact. In this study, some recycling processes of spent lithium-ion batteries were considered, and their sustainability was evaluated based on the ESCAPE “Evaluation of Sustainability of material substitution using CArbon footPrint by a simplifiEd approach” approach, which is a screening tool preliminary to the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The work specifically focuses on cobalt recovery comparing the sustainability of using inorganic or organic acid for the leaching of waste derived from lithium-ion batteries. Based on the possibility to compare different processes, for the first time, some considerations about technologies optimization have been done, allowing proposing strategies able to save chemicals. In addition, the energy mix of each country, to generate electricity has been considered, showing its influence on the sustainability evaluation. This allows distinguishing the countries using more low-carbon sources (nuclear and renewables) for a share of the electricity mix, where the recycling processes result more sustainable. Finally, this outcome is reflected by another indicator, the eco-cost from the virtual pollution model 99′ proposed by Vogtländer, which integrates the monetary estimation of carbon footprint. MDPI 2022-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9737978/ /pubmed/36500023 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15238527 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fahimi, Ario
Zanoletti, Alessandra
Cornelio, Antonella
Mousa, Elsayed
Ye, Guozhu
Frontera, Patrizia
Depero, Laura Eleonora
Bontempi, Elza
Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title_full Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title_fullStr Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title_full_unstemmed Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title_short Sustainability Analysis of Processes to Recycle Discharged Lithium-Ion Batteries, Based on the ESCAPE Approach
title_sort sustainability analysis of processes to recycle discharged lithium-ion batteries, based on the escape approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9737978/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36500023
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15238527
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