Department of Mechanical Engineering, Celestijnenlaan 300A, BOX 2422, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Celestijnenlaan 300A, BOX 2422, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Waste Manag. 2021 Apr 15;125:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2021.02.032. Epub 2021 Mar 2.
The European Union is promoting the uptake of low emission vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. However, this transition will increase the demand for five important battery raw materials; i.e. lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and graphite. Therefore, a substance flow analysis and forecasting model are proposed to investigate the flow of these materials through the different lifecycle stages of electric vehicle batteries. The model forecasts that by 2040, the vehicle stock will be from 72 to 78 million vehicles, while the second use stock will be from 3 to 11 million batteries. In addition, the annual recycling waste stream in 2040 will grow to roughly 3 million batteries with a capacity of 125 GWh. Results indicate that this waste stream could cover between 10% and 300% of future raw materials demand for electric vehicles. The width of this range is dominated by uncertainties on the rapidly evolving material composition of automotive batteries and the possible commercialization of cobalt-free battery technologies. The remaining uncertainty is attributed to the battery lifetime in vehicle use and potential second use of retired batteries.
欧盟正在推动采用低排放车辆，以减少交通领域的温室气体排放。然而，这一转型将增加对锂、镍、钴、铜和石墨等五种重要电池原材料的需求。因此，提出了一种物质流分析和预测模型，以研究这些材料在电动汽车电池不同生命周期阶段的流动情况。该模型预测，到 2040 年，汽车存量将从 7200 万到 7800 万辆，而二次使用存量将从 300 万到 1100 万只电池。此外，2040 年的年回收废物量将增长到大约 300 万只电池，容量为 125GWh。结果表明，这一废物流可以满足未来电动汽车原材料需求的 10%至 300%。这一范围的宽度主要取决于汽车电池材料组成的快速演变以及钴免费电池技术的商业化可能性等不确定因素。其余的不确定性则归因于电池在汽车使用中的寿命和退役电池的潜在二次使用。
