Electrochemical leaching of critical materials from lithium-ion batteries: A comparative life cycle assessment

The manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) requires critical materials such as cobalt (Co) and lithium (Li) that are essential for clean-energy products including electric vehicles. Because of their rapidly increasing demand and limited supply, the recycle and reuse of these materials from end-of-life LIB have garnered a lot of interest. Electrochemical leaching has emerged as a sustainable method to extract critical materials out of LIB, so life cycle assessment was conducted to compare the environmental impacts with traditional peroxide-based leaching and another emerging technology – SO₂-based leaching. The results showed that electrochemical leaching reduces the global warming potential (GWP) by 80%−87% compared to peroxide-based leaching due to a lower acid consumption, avoidance of hydrogen peroxide, and regeneration of reducing agent iron (II) sulfate and compares well with SO₂-based leaching in most impact categories. The analysis suggested renewable energy can further reduce the environment footprint of electrochemical leaching.