Cathode materials account for around one third of the manufacturing cost of lithium-ion battery, which are the major factor preventing the wider applications of power battery packs. Flame synthesis (FS) is a new manufacturing technology of nanostructured materials with few equipment and high efficiency, which potentially can substantially bring down the manufacturing cost of cathode materials. The primary objective of the present study was to quantitatively evaluate the resources, energy consumption and economic feasibility of large-scale production of cathode materials though FS. In the analysis process, the mass flow of reactants and resultants as well as the minimum cathode material selling price (MCSP) of ternary cathode material LiNixCoyMn(1-x-y)O2 (x + y + z = 1) produced by FS were calculated, and compared with that of the conventional hydroxide co-precipitation method. Results show that the production of ternary cathode material through FS can reduce CO2 emissions by ∼60% and water consumption by ∼30%. MCSP of LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 (NCM523), LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 (NCM622), and LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 (NCM811) produced by FS are 224.8 k¥/t, 235.1 k¥/t, 240.0 k¥/t, which respectively are about 2%, 10% and 14% lower than the average selling prices in Chinese market, indicating that FS is economically feasible for producing ternary cathode materials. Particularly, for the production of high-nickel cathode materials, FS has notable potential in simplifying the production process and manufacturing costs. Sensitivity analysis of NCM811 produced by FS shows that when raw material price, fuel and power costs are reduced by 25%, MCSP can be as low as 186.4 k¥/t. When the metal cation concentration of the solution increases to 3.2 mol/L, it enables FS to meet the most rigorous energy consumption limitation standards in China. When the lithium excess is reduced from 10% to 5%, MCSP of NCM811 can be further reduced by 5.6 k¥/t, indicating that lithium loss due to high temperatures in FS is a moderate factor for reducing the manufacturing cost. Finally, this work presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of NCM materials produced by FS in China. Comparison to the global warming potential (GWP) of the co-precipitation method in the literature indicated that GWP of FS is lower.
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