Balint Simon

Direct air capture (DAC) is an essential nexus of CO ₂ chemistry and climate mitigation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is often used to validate the environmental potential of emerging technologies. Consequently, an increased number of ex ante LCAs is expected in this field. However, a comprehensive description through parameterized modeling of life cycle inventories of distinct technological pathways, which is essential for transparency, has recently been missing from the international literature. To fill this gap, the present study analyzes three selected DAC technologies to create an inventory. Amine‐based adsorption and absorption, as well as alkali‐based absorption, were modeled. The energy consumption of the operation, cradle‐to‐gate embodied energy, and sensitivity analysis based on parameter variations were carried out. The “cradle‐to‐gate” energy requirement of direct air capture (DAC) often lies in the range or above the formation energy of CO ₂ (8.94 GJ energy can be obtained by formation of 1 t CO ₂ from elementary C and O ₂ ). This indicates that theoretically more energy is required for capture, as can be obtained during the formation of CO ₂ . Because energy has continuously growing economic and ecological value, this energy intensity of DAC implies that DAC might have important role in CCU to add directly measurable economic value. The parametrized model includes over 60 parameters, resulting in an array of possible energy and material requirements. The use of this wide range of figures in life cycle assessment (LCA) sheds light on real opportunities for DAC in future product systems. The option of varying parameters enables the tailoring of the calculation to a particular situation or design. In this way, the calculator offers a common base for LCA, fostering an early stage analysis of DAC technologies.

Direct air capture (DAC) is an essential nexus of CO2 chemistry and climate mitigation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is often used to validate the environmental potential of emerging technologies. Consequently, an increased number of ex-ante LCAs is expected in this field. However, a comprehensive description through paramterized modelling of life cycle inventories of distinc technological pathways, which is essential for transparency, has recently been missing from the international literature. To fill this gap, the present study analyzes three selected DAC technologies to create an inventory. Amine-based adsorption and absorption, as well as alkali-based absorption, were modelled. The energy consumption of the operation, cradle-to-gate embodied energy, and sensitivity analysis based on parameter variations were carried out. The “cradle-to-gate” energy requirement of DAC often lies in the range or above the formation energy of CO2 (8.94 GJ energy can be obtained by formation of 1t CO2 from elementary C and O2). This indicates that theoretically more energy is required for capture, as can be obtained during the formation of CO2. Because energy has continuously growing economic and ecological value, this energy intensity of DAC implies that DAC might have important role in CCU to add directly measurable economic value. The parametrized model includes over 60 parameters, resulting in an array of possible energy and material requirements. The use of this wide range of figures in life cycle assessment sheds light on real opportunities for direct air capture in future product systems. The option of varying parameters enables the tailoring of the calculation to a particular situation or design. In this way, the calculator offers a common base for LCA, fostering an early stage analysis of DAC technologies.

: Direct air capture (DAC) is an essential nexus of CO2 chemistry and climate mitigation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is often deployed to validate the environmental potentials of such future emerging technologies. Consequently, an increased number of ex-ante LCAs are expected in this field. However, recently a comprehensive life cycle inventory for LCA is missing from the international literature, which is essential for transparency. To fill this gap, the present paper analyses three selected DAC technologies to create an inventory for LCAs. Amine-based adsorption and -absorption, as well as, alkali-based absorption was modelled. Energy consumption of the operation, the cradle-to-gate embodied energy and sensitivity analysis based on parameter variations were carried out. The maximum energy released by the formation of CO2 (8.94-18.2 GJ/t CO2) were also considered in the evaluation. However several studies state that DAC is a negative emission technology, its energy requirement often lies in the range or above the formation energy of CO2. Accordingly, theoretically more energy is required for the capture as can be obtained during the formation of CO2. The calculation model includes over 60 parameters resulting in an array of the possible energy and material requirements. The use of this wide range of figures in life cycle assessment sheds light on the real opportunities of direct air capture in future product systems. The option of varying parameters enables tailoring the calculation to a particular situation or design. In this way, the calculator offers a common base for LCA fostering the early-stage analysis of DAC technologies.

The technology of electrochemical energy storage (EES) is supposed to play a key role in the near future for mobility systems characterized by electric vehicles as well as for stationary applications providing energy supply as they represent the interface between transport and energy networks. The performance of EES systems is closely linked to the applied battery materials which contain metals often considered critical. For determining criticality of metals different approaches have been used which however evaluate such materials for the economy as a whole. What has been missing up till now is the examination of critical raw materials for individual technologies.Therefore it is intended to develop a technology specific criticality indicator for battery materials.The focus of this paper is developing a method to indicate the significance of raw materials for electrochemical active materials used by lithium-ion batteries (LIB) which are currently very promising EES for mobile and stationary applications. In order to implement this at first the following three aspects were analyzed and put in relation to each other: importance of electrode materials, amount of metal in the active material and exploitable metal reserves. The combination of these factors resulted in a relevance index (RI) which allows determining the relevance of raw materials in different types of LIBs. Based on this index the development of a technology specific criticality indicator has to integrate further aspects being the focus of future work.

This Paper focuses on a comparative probabilistic economic comparison of sodium sulfur batteries (NaS), Lithium-Iron Phosphate batteries (LFP), Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRB), Lead Acid batteries (PbA) and a Pumped Hydro Storage Plant (PHS). Two cases for a load leveling and peak shaving storage application were analyzed and compared. The comparison is based on a comprehensive literature review which showed remarkable deviations within most techno-economic values. This makes it difficult to assess the technologies by a deterministic approach. Therefore, a complementary probabilistic approach was developed in form of a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS). The results show clearly that among batteries, PbA have the best cost performance followed by NaS and VRB. LFP has the highest costs within all scenarios. However, PHS is the most cost efficient technology for load leveling. In the case of peak shaving the battery costs decrease significantly due to lower initial investment costs.

Electro-chemical storage systems can be used in the electricity grid to store energy when demand is low and feed it back during demand peaks. The so-called load leveling might reduce the overall fossil fuel demand, but the production efforts for the batteries must be taken into account in a holistic approach. This study employs life cycle assessment with the cumulative energy demand impact assessment method. It is used as an indicator to evaluate if grid-integrated stationary battery systems in future load leveling applications create benefits which can offset the batteries' production efforts. Lead acid, nickel metal-hydride and lithium iron-phosphate batteries are assessed. Only lithium iron-phosphate batteries with a long life-cycle can reduce the overall fossil cumulative energy demand. Battery efficiency and degradation were found to be significant parameters in this analysis.

The increasing proportion of renewable resources in electricity mixes, the decentralization of energy supply and the growing use of electric vehicles demands the challenging development of reliable, cost effective and flexible energy storage technologies. One option are electrochemical energy storage systems with high specific power and high specific energy density. One of the most promising electrochemical energy storage systems is the lithium-ion batteries (LIB) which are customized regarding size, weight, specific energy and specific capacity what makes batteries ready for operation under different conditions such as emerging electric power systems, grid support or electric mobility [1]. Even though the lithium-Ion technology for traction batteries is not yet widely applied, experiments and first use experiences show that it is a promising electric energy storage system for electric mobility. However, the environmental impacts of battery production, use and recycling are not well understood. To gain a better understanding about the ecological properties of LIBs material and energy flow analysis (MEFA) is conducted. The MEFA defines the possible sources and consumers of relevant materials, substances, pollutants and energy flows [2, 3]. The presented study analyses the consumed materials and energy as well as the emitted substances and waste heat of different LIBs. The main focus of the MEFA is on the production phase and includes active and passive components and material such as metal-salts, electrode materials, other functional metals (e.g. current collectors, casing, etc.), plastics (e.g. separator) and electrolytes [4--7] and on energy consumption as well.