Prospects of recycling from end-of-life of Li-ion batteries on alleviating materials demand-supply gap in new electric vehicles in Asia

Muhammad Shafique; Muhammad Ateeq; Muhammad Rafiq; Anam Azam; Xiaowei Luo

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2023.08.033

Prospects of recycling from end-of-life of Li-ion batteries on alleviating materials demand-supply gap in new electric vehicles in Asia

Waste Manag. 2023 Sep 1:171:207-217. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2023.08.033. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Muhammad Shafique¹, Muhammad Ateeq², Muhammad Rafiq³, Anam Azam⁴, Xiaowei Luo⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom. Electronic address: muhammad.shafique@brunel.ac.uk.
² Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
³ Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan.
⁴ Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Karlsruhe, Germany.
⁵ Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Electronic address: xiaowluo@cityu.edu.hk.

PMID: 37666146
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2023.08.033

Abstract

The acceptance of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is continuously increasing to mitigate CO₂ emissions, resulting in an increase in the future material demand for LIBs. Therefore, the proper handling of End-of-life (EOL) BEV batteries requires careful attention to mitigate the supply chain issues for future LIBs materials, especially in Asia. A system dynamics model assessment was performed to evaluate the EOL of LIBs by considering the dynamic lifespan, recovery rate, and economic value under three growth rate scenarios in Asia from 2022 to 2030, depending on the battery chemistry over time. We find that comparing three different scenarios to materials demand, the result showed that materials demand for LIBs is greater in higher scenarios as compared with lower and reference scenarios. Moreover, in the low scenario, the nickel demand and recovery from end-of-life LIBs BEVs will achieve 244.0 and 43.28 kt in 2030. Based on the dynamic economic evaluation, an overall, higher potential economic value of all materials would achieve around 1471 million USD in 2030 in the low scenario. This study manifested that recycling LIBs materials has enormous economic potential and would be a step towards economic sustainability, especially in Asia in the near future.

Keywords: Battery electric vehicles; Demand-supply; EOL battery management; Economic value; Recovery rate; Recycling.