Mapping Key Steps in Lithium-ion Battery Production to Evaluate Their Contribution to the Life Cycle Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles

Research Project, 2018 – 2019

Current research with life cycle assessment (LCA) shows that li-ion battery production constitutes a significant cause of environmental impact from electrified road vehicles, owing to a large energy demand for material processing and the production of battery cells. But the manufacturing energy intensity is highly dependent on facility throughput, while many LCA studies so far have been unable to acquire factory data from industrial scale production. Moreover, the industry is pushing towards a major increase in plant size. In order to provide relevant assessment of environmental impact and a knowledge base for strategy work in the automotive sector, there is an increasing need to map large scale battery production in terms of energy use, losses and emissions.

The project will include a thorough literature review of current practices, both in LCA and technical literature, and modelling of large scale battery production, for example in Sweden. The aim is to identify key steps in the production of li-ion batteries for vehicle traction applications and to describe these on a unit process level suitable for LCA, as a foundation for further assessment.