Description of Research
In response to the climate emergency to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the UK's road transport system is rapidly transitioning from internal combustion engine vehicles towards electric vehicles (EV). Life cycle assessment (LCA) literature has extensively agreed on the decarbonization benefits of EVs over ICEVs but at the cost of increased impacts in resource depletion and toxicity categories. Predominantly, this is attributed to the upstream impacts of battery manufacturing requiring substantial scarce and toxic resource inputs (e.g., copper, cobalt, and nickel).

The reuse and recycling of EV batteries at their end-of-life can reduce these impacts by extending the product lifecycle and lowering the demand for primary materials. However, despite the highlighted reuse potential of EV batteries in stationary energy storage, this is rarely considered in the LCA of EVs. Moreover, if battery recycling is considered, it often relies on oversimplified and outdated inventory data that risks misrepresenting current and future technology. Lastly, the uncertainties in parameters and future scenarios of end-of-life processes are largely unaddressed leading to static, single point results. Thus, the influence of end-of-life strategies on the environmental impacts of EV batteries is not well understood. This is mainly due to the speculative nature of end-of-life calculations, because EV adoption is still relatively early and yet to reach substantial end-of-life quantities. However, with the global EV stock approaching 12 million with the potential to surpass 145 million by 2030, prospective methods to project the end-of-life environmental impacts of EV batteries is vital.

This PhD project will delve into battery reuse and recycling stages in LCA of EVs to collate representative data, explore current and future end-of-life scenarios, and address uncertainty. This will further the understanding of critical factors in determining the environmental impacts of EV batteries to inform environmental sustainability for electric mobility.

Firstly, a systematic review will be conducted on end-of-life in LCA of EV batteries to identify, analyse and compare current methods used to specify key limitations and research gaps. This will inform the data collection phase looking to collate up-to-date databases and engage with industry to compile new, representative life cycle inventories of current recycling technology and reuse scenarios. Subsequently, with the compiled end-of-life inventory, LCA will be applied to assess the environmental impacts of various battery chemistries and their wider influence integrated into EVs. Further, statistical uncertainty propagation will be utilized to end-of-life parameters and future scenarios to generate potential deviations in results.

Through journal publications, conference presentations, and public engagement, this work seeks to benefit academia, industry and policy, in particular: (1) LCA practitioners, by contributing up-to-date inventory data for end-of-life and methodological perspectives; (2) key strategy decision-makers, by furthering the understanding of environmental impacts of EV batteries, and; (3) the general public by informing the discussion of the topical nature of EV batteries. As funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this research project primarily contributes to the theme of Energy to inform engineering and policy in addressing environmental sustainability of batteries, electric vehicles, and renewable eneRGY