Life cycle assessment of biobased binder for Lithium-ion batteries

Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are the most promising for electric vehicles and for the storage of renewable energy. Polyvinylidene fluorid (PVDF) is the basic binder materialused for the production composite electrodes in LIB because of its good electrochemicalstability, good bonding ability, and liquid absorption ability. On the other hand, thereare a few drawbacks to using polyvinylidene fluoride the firs is the use of hazardous andecologically unfriendly solvents like N-methyl-pyrrolidone (NMP), and the second is thatit is based on fossil resource. Substituting PVDF binder by renewable biobased binder materials and inserting thesematerials into the battery system is a potential possibility for the substitution of PVDFin LIB. There are a lot of biobased binders like lignin, alginate, agarose, karaya gum,etc. that are available from natural resources, and these binders are selected for use inLIB based on material and electrochemical properties. They have good properties suchas chemical bonding, stiffness toughness, thermal stability, disperse capabilities and eco-friendly disposal procedures. The water-based processing is mentioned for the recyclingprocess of biobased binder. However, similar to PVDF these biobased binders also have an impact on the environ-ment due to their production or processing, among others. So the major goal of thisresearch is to determine the CO2 footprint and environmental effect for the productionand the end-of-life processes of PVDF and various biobased binders and then comparethe results. The environmental implications are assessed using the life cycle assessment(LCA) technique. For each binder, LCA models of their production processes were cre-ated, calculated and compared to each other. Based on these results, Lignin was identifieas the most promising biobased binder and further analyzed by creating LCA models ofthe end-of-life processes of PVDF and Lignin with differet recycling methods. Basedon these results, PVDF supercritical carbon dioxide is recognized as the most promisingprocess for environmental footprint.