Co-products recovery does not necessarily mitigate environmental and economic tradeoffs in lithium-ion battery recycling

Abstract

Although spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) recycling could reduce raw materials production, environmental and economic tradeoffs may not necessarily neutralize impacts associated with additional inputs. Here, we evaluated life cycle environmental and economic tradeoffs of traditional hydrometallurgy for mixed spent LIBs recycling. We revealed impacts of the main and co-products recycling, and their contribution to the impacts from the overall recycling process. Cobalt was the main product due to the highest market value, Li2CO3, nickel, Na2SO4, and graphite were co-products which require additional recycling procedures to obtain. Results suggest co-products recycling doubled the net greenhouse gas emission, and the economic gain decreased by $26 compared to the main product recycling (per kg Co recycled). Conversely, human health impacts were mitigated by co-products recycling due to avoiding virgin co-products production. Our work highlighted that optimizing co-products recycling is vital to minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing the economic feasibility of spent LIB recycling.