Prospective LCA of Next-Generation Cells for Electric Vehicle Applications

Several next-generation cells are now being researched to overcome the performance and sustainability limitations of the current Li-ion cells. The aim of this article is to assess the environmental impacts of the following next-generation cells chosen for their potential to meet the performance and safety requirements for future electric vehicle applications: Silicon-Polyacrylonitrile (SiCPAN), Silicon NanoWires (SiNWs), All-Solid-State (ASS) and Lithium-Sulphur (Li-S). Because the selected cells are emerging technologies, solely produced at the laboratory scale, a novel cradle-to-gate Prospective Life Cycle Assessment (P-LCA) was performed to ensure a fair comparison with the current Li-ion cell. The life cycle inventories of the selected cells were built by scaling up all the laboratory scale processes and activity data to industrial scale. The methodology is compliant with the most used frameworks for conventional LCAs, namely ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2018, and state-of-the-art guidelines for P-LCAs. The results showed that the Li-S cell has lower impact with respect to the current Li-ion cell in four out of the six most relevant impact categories, among which use of mineral and metal resources. The SiNWs cell revealed the greatest impact in almost all the impact categories. Lastly, a what-if analysis conducted on the silver content revealed that the ASS cell produced without silver would be the least impactful cell among the next-generation cells considered in this study.