Florian Hölting

Many battery life cycle assessment (LCA) studies rely on the ecoinvent database and the Mineral Resource Scarcity (MRS, ReCiPe 2016) impact category is well-established in literature to quantify the impact of the use of finite resources for battery production. In most of those studies, the upstream burdens of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) and lithium hydroxide (LiOH), the two dominant lithium precursors for LFP and nickel-rich layered-oxide cathode active materials, dominate the total MRS impact. However, up to the current ecoinvent database (version 3.12), the MRS characterization factor applied to the spodumene input falsely equals the characterization factor of elemental lithium, i.e., one kilogram of spodumene ore is treated as if it depleted one kilogram of scarce lithium resource. Sincelithium accounts for only about 3.7 wt.- % of spodumene (LiAlSi2O6), this severely overstates the MRS burden attributable to spodumene-based lithium supply in the database by roughly a factor of 27, drastically impacting past studies on MRS evaluation of Li-based batteries. We derive a stoichiometric correction factor and quantify its effect on cradle-to-gate MRS results for LFP and NMC811 battery cells, showing that the correction reduces the cell-level MRS result by 62 to 63 % for both chemistries and cuts lithium’s apparent share of total NMC811 cell MRS from about 66 % to about 11 %, without reversing the ranking between the two chemistries examined here; for battery LCA studies with different assumed brine-to-spodumene supply shares, the error can plausibly distort such chemistry rankings. We have reported the issue to ecoinvent, who confirmed that it will be corrected in version 3.13. Until then, this note provides a citable, quantified reference for correcting affected results and for interpreting previously published studies that relied on the erroneous dataset

The mounting demand for battery cells in the context of the energy transition necessitates evaluation methods that extend beyond technical performance metrics. This work presents a multidimensional framework that simultaneously integrates electrical performance, costs, and life cycle assessment into a consistent analysis of real and virtual cells. In total, 140 cells were modeled, covering commercial chemistries and systematically permuted configurations, in which electrode combinations were recombined. The framework enables a direct variation of individual design parameters without unintended changes to other properties. This allows systematic comparisons of real, commercial cells with virtual redesigns under consistent boundary conditions. The comparison enables the identification of suitable cells in accordance with varying requirements and thus supports cell selection for battery systems.

The mounting demand for battery cells in the context of the energy transition necessitates evaluation methodologies that extend beyond mere performance metrics. This work presents a multidimensional framework that simultaneously integrates electrical performance, economic costs, and life cycle assessment into a consistent analysis of real and virtual cells. In total 140 cells were modeled, covering commercial chemistries and systematically permuted configurations. The framework enables systematic comparisons of real commercial cells and virtual redesigns by varying cell parameters under consistent boundary conditions without unintended side effects. Ultra high energy cells were generated, achieving very high energy densities under idealized design assumptions. Lithium‐iron‐phosphate (LFP) battery cells exhibit global warming potential values of , while sodium‐ion batteries (SiB) show a slightly higher range of . Depending on housing and anode composition, production costs range from – for LFP and – for SiB. SiB cells achieve mineral resource scarcity values of about , three times lower than lithium‐ion batteries. Cathode chemistry proves decisive for ecological performance, with nickel sulfate‐based precursors showing the highest acidification values and LFP cells showing the lowest. Housing design plays an important role: pouch formats minimize costs and emissions. Systematic permutations show that increasing energy density is a key lever to lower environmental burdens.