Abstract
Carbon materials, whether at macro, micro or at nanoscale, play an important role in the battery industry, as they can be used as electrodes, electrode enhancers, bipolar separators, or current collectors. When conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of novel batteries manufacturing processes, we also need to consider the fate of potentially emitted carbon based nanomaterials. However, the knowledge generated in the last decade regarding the behavior of such materials in the environment and its toxicological effects has yet to be included in the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodologies. Conventional databases of chemical products (e.g. ECHA, ECOTOX) offer little information regarding engineered nanomaterials (ENM). It is thus necessary to go one step further and compile physicochemical and toxicological data directly from scientific literature. Such studies do not only differ in their results, but also in their methodologies, and several calls have been made towards a more consistent approach that would allow us model the fate of ENM in the environment as well as their potentially harmful effects. Trying to overcome these limitations we have developed a tool based on Microsoft Excel® combining several methods for the estimation of physicochemical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNT). The information generated with this tool is combined with degradation rates and toxicological data consistent with the methods followed by the USEtox methodology. Thus, it is possible to calculate the characterization factors of CNTs and integrate them as a first proxy in future LCA of products including these ENM.
Highlights
Energy storage systems play a major role in the transition towards a more environmentally sustainable society, being critical for both increasing the production of electricity through renewable energies and to end a fossil fuel dependent mobility [1]
The characterization factors (CF) were calculated with USEtox [13], a consensus methodology recommended by the ILCD handbook for the categories of Human Toxicity (HT) and Freshwater Ecotoxicity (FET) [10]
The factors calculated for USEtox suggest multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) to be more harmful to human health than
Summary
Energy storage systems play a major role in the transition towards a more environmentally sustainable society, being critical for both increasing the production of electricity through renewable energies and to end a fossil fuel dependent mobility [1]. A wide variety of technologies and an even wider range of material are used or studied for the storage of electricity One of those materials is carbon, used extensively in electrochemistry due to its good chemical stability and high electrical conductivity [2]. The importance of this element has increased in the last decades due to the apparition of carbon based nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are rolled sheets of graphene with a diameter in the range of nanometers (nm) [3] They can be used as electrodes, electrode enhancers, bipolar
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