Carbon Footprint Comparison and Environmental Impact Analysis of Ternary Lithium-Ion and Lithium Iron Phosphate Power Batteries

Ternary lithium-ion and lithium iron phosphate power batteries are widely used on electric vehicles in China. However, the development of their carbon footprint assessment systems is still in its initial stage. This paper calculates the carbon footprints of commonly used ternary lithium-ion and lithium iron phosphate power batteries and analyzes their ecological impacts on the environment. Life cycle of the power batteries are divided into production and usage, and the inventory data of the battery in two stages are collected according to 1 kWh unit. The software Simapro and the IPCC 2021 GWP 100 carbon footprint calculation method are used to calculate the carbon footprint. The results show that the carbon footprint contribution of ternary lithium-ion batteries is the largest in the production stage, accounting for 75.8% of the total carbon footprint. This is because three precious metals (cobalt, nickel and manganese) account for a large proportion of the carbon footprint. For lithium iron phosphate batteries, the carbon footprint contribution is the largest in the usage stage, accounting for 59% of the total carbon footprint, mainly due to the low proportion of green power in China’s power system. A comparison of the total carbon emissions of two types of batteries shows that the total emissions of lithium iron phosphate batteries are generally half of those of ternary lithium-ion batteries, indicating that lithium iron phosphate batteries are superior to ternary lithium-ion batteries in terms of ecological impact on the environmental.