Current and Future Impacts of Lithium Carbonate from Brines: A Global Regionalized Life Cycle Assessment Model

Lithium (Li) is essential for decarbonization strategies,
such
as electric vehicles and renewable energy storage, which experiences
the largest growth rates among metals required for low-carbon technologies.
To meet this demand, the raw materials sector must increase current
capacities and develop new capacities at untapped deposits. Understanding
life cycle impacts is crucial to avoid severe environmental burden
shifts in the future. Although site-specific life cycle inventories
exist, they do not allow for a comprehensive global assessment of
the Li sector, particularly in capturing technological developments.
To address this, our study presents a life cycle inventory model for
brines that maintains essential site-specific parameters while providing
a global perspective. We define core parameters for site-specific
modeling of Li carbonate (Li2CO3) production
and develop a systematic approach to addressing data gaps. Our model
employs a class-based structure for 30 mapped processes from the literature
and quantifies environmental and technical flows. Overall, we cover
25 sites, representing 300 kilotonnes (90%) of current Li2CO3 production from brines and an additional 315 kilotonnes
of potential future production. One key finding is that sites using
direct Li extraction have 7-fold higher climate change impacts than
sites using conventional technologies on average, while water scarcity
impacts are doubled on average. The difference is a result of the
larger brine mass required to be treated due to lower Li grades. Furthermore,
our model allows the implications for Li-ion battery production to
be analyzed.