Life Cycle Assessment and resource analysis of all-solid-state batteries

In this investigation the environmental impacts of the manufacturing processes of a new all-solid-state battery (SSB) concept in a pouch bag housing were assessed using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology for the first time. To do so, the different production steps were investigated in detail, based on actual laboratory scale production processes. All in- and outputs regarding material and energy flows were collected and assessed. As LCA investigations of products in an early state of research and development usually result in comparatively higher results than those of mature technologies in most impact categories, potential future improvements of production processes and efficiency were considered by adding two concepts to the investigation. Apart from the laboratory production which depicts the current workflow, an idealized laboratory production and a possible industrial production were portrayed as well. The results indicate that electricity consumption plays a big role due to a lot of high temperature production steps. It needs to be improved for future industrial production. Also enhanced battery performance can strongly influence the results. Overall the laboratory scale results indeed improve strongly when assuming a careful use of resources, which will likely be a predominant target for industrial production. These findings therefore highlight hotspots and give improvement targets for future developments. It can also be deducted, that a comparison to the results of competing technologies that have already reached a commercial stage is not recommended for early LCAs. To round things off a resource analysis was also conducted. It identifies the usage of lanthanum, lithium and zirconium oxide as critical, especially when taking laboratory production as a base. When looking at the scale up to industrial production parameters, lanthanum and lithium remain critical, zirconium oxide not.