A Life Cycle Assessment of Lithium-Sulfur battery Cathodes

Since lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have a far higher energy density than other batteries, they have a huge potential to replace current energy storage chemistries. Closing the current data gap is the necessary step for the estimation of the potential environmental implications related to Li-S cathodes to support the development of greener Li-S batteries. This study performs a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) using cradle-to-gate boundaries of five Li-S battery cathodes with high sulfur loadings (1.5-15 mg/cm). The environmental impact can be decreased by a factor of up to 5 depending on the battery selected. When ordinary lithium-ion batteries and Li-S batteries are evaluated using secondary data from the Ecoinvent 3.6 database, the latter has a lower environmental effect per kWh of storage capacity. It was also found that the electrolyte plays a significant part in the environmental impacts connected with the performance of Li-S batteries. Sensitivity analyses reveal that reducing the amount of utilized electrolytes can minimize the specific consequences by up to 70%. Overall, this thesis highlights how Li-S technology can be used to develop more ecologically friendly batteries that can replace current energy storage technologies.