Evaluation of optimal waste lithium-ion battery recycling technology driven by multiple factors

Abstract

As energy and environmental issues become increasingly prominent, the process of global carbon emission reduction is now underway. In the transportation sector, the application of electric vehicles is an effective way to achieve energy saving and emission reduction. Lithium-ion battery, an important component of electric vehicles, has received widespread attention for its advantages including small size, high energy density and smooth discharge voltage. However, their potential safety and pollution issues are becoming prominent and must be properly handled. Moreover, the technical route and future direction of LIB recycling are still unclear at this stage. Herein, this paper evaluates different waste lithium-ion battery recycling technologies in a multi-criteria decision framework to determine the best technology. A criteria system driven by multiple factors is established, including environmental impact (C1), technical risk (C2), comprehensive resource utilization (C3), resource consumption (C4) and economic performance (C5). Subsequently, since the optimal technology is novel and difficult to select, the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets are used to express the degree of hesitation in expert decision making. Finally, from the aspects of the choice of sorting method, the Tomada de decisao interativa multicriterio method based on the expectation effect is used to evaluate the optimal waste lithium-ion battery recycling technology, and the validity of the framework is illustrated by data analysis.