CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Battery Environmental Analysis

Abstract

This chapter presents an environmental analysis of battery and hybrid electric vehicles, which are a seen as a part of the solution to problems such as urban air pollution, fossil fuel depletion, and global warming. The impacts of the different battery technologies have to be analyzed individually to allow the comparison of the different chemistries and to enable the definition of the most environmentally friendly battery technology for electrically propelled vehicles and it can be done in a qualitative or a quantitative way. The recycling phase of a battery allows it to compensate for the environmental impacts of the production phase to a great extent and the metals in them tend to be recycled more massively than many other components. A substantial part of the potential damage to human health and to the ecosystems can be avoided due to the recycling processes while the damage to nonrenewable resources seems to be reduced in a less important way. A rough evaluation of the potential environmental impact of less-widespread battery technologies such as nickel–zinc, Li–ion polymer and lithium metal, zinc–air, vanadium redox, zinc–bromine, polysulfide–bromine, and nickel–iron technologies are considered for qualitative analysis. The findings suggest the importance of recycling of the spent batteries as it can save resources and lower the total environmental impact of the life cycle of the batteries.