Life Cycle Inventory Data for "Projecting Environmental Improvements in Mineral Processing Pathways: the Case of Cathode Active Material Production"

Created Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Data Repository for Projecting Environmental Improvements in Mineral Processing Pathways: the Case of Cathode Active Material Production, study to be published in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. Life cycle inventories are extracted as excel files from corresponding databases in Activity Browser (version 2.11.2). LCI databases can therefore be directly imported into Brightway2 or Activity Browser. To note that databases which naming convention begins with “kWh” should be assessed via the electricity storage process model, which energy density needs to be updated over the years, as performed in original premise datasets. Evolving energy densities for each battery chemistry (as kg of battery/kWh of capacity) are listed in energy-density-data.xlsx Databases descriptions Emerging-technology-switches: contains all process models pertinent to emerging technology switches as well as process-based inventories for nickel and iron phosphate processing pathways. kWh-LFP-baseline-iron-phosphate: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with LFP chemistry, with LFP CAM produced from the baseline hydrothermal process with iron phosphate precursor. kWh-LFP-improved-from-tailings: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with LFP chemistry, with LFP CAM produced from the hydrothermal process with iron phosphate precursor made from valorized HPAL tailings, and with phosphoric acid manufacturing exhibiting vapour capture at cooling towers. kWh-LFP-no-water-improvement: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with LFP chemistry, with LFP CAM produced from the hydrothermal process with iron phosphate precursor made from valorized HPAL tailings. kWh-NMC955-baseline-bioleaching: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMC955 chemistry, with NMC955 hydroxide sourcing nickel from tailings bioleaching. kWh-NMC955-baseline-HPAL: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMC955 chemistry, with NMC955 hydroxide sourcing nickel from the HPAL process. kWh-NMC955-improved-bioleaching: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMC955 chemistry, with NMC955 hydroxide sourcing nickel from tailings bioleaching improved by switching the limestone precipitation reagent to low-carbon quicklime. Sodium sulfate by-product is also looped as sodium hydroxide via salt-splitting. kWh-NMC955-improved-HPAL: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMC955 chemistry, with NMC955 hydroxide sourcing nickel from the HPAL process improved by switching the limestone precipitation reagent to low-carbon quicklime. Sodium sulfate by-product is also looped as sodium hydroxide via salt-splitting. kWh-NMMT-baseline-bioleaching: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMMT chemistry, with NMMT CAM sourcing nickel from tailings bioleaching.kWh-NMMT-baseline-HPAL: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMMT chemistry, with NMMT CAM sourcing nickel from the HPAL process. kWh-NMMT-improved-HPAL: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMMT chemistry, with NMMT CAM sourcing nickel from the HPAL process improved by switching the limestone precipitation reagent to low-carbon quicklime. kWh-NMMT-improving-bioleaching: contains all required process models for 1 kWh of battery storage with NMMT chemistry, with NMMT CAM sourcing nickel from tailings bioleaching improved by switching the limestone precipitation reagent to low-carbon quicklime.