Comparative life cycle assessment of Fe 2 O 3 -based fibers as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries
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Comparative life cycle assessment of Fe2O3‑based fibers as anode materials for sodium‑ion batteries Angela Malara1 · Fabiola Pantò1 · Saveria Santangelo1,2 · Pier Luigi Antonucci1,2 · Michele Fiore3 · Gianluca Longoni4 · Riccardo Ruffo3 · Patrizia Frontera1,2 Received: 9 April 2019 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) potentially represent a more sustainable, less expensive and environmentally friendly alternative to lithium-ion batteries. The development of new lowcost, non-toxic, highly performing electrode materials is the key point for the SIB technology advances. This study develops a basic life cycle assessment (LCA) model for the evaluation of the production by electrospinning of iron (III) oxide-based fibers to be used as anode materials in SIBs. Indeed, it has been recently demonstrated that electrospun silicon-doped iron (III) oxide (Fe2O3) fibers exhibit outstanding electrochemical properties and gravimetric capacities never achieved before for pure F e2O3-based anodes. The LCA methodology is utilized in order to analyze the environmental burdens (from raw material extraction to manufacturing process) of these electrode materials. The simplified comparative LCA studies, conducted to assess the environmental impacts associated with the e2O3:Si fibers at the same cell performance, demonstrate that the electrospun Fe2O3 and F Si-doped anode material, which exhibits better electrochemical performance with respect to the undoped one, has also lower impact for each category of damage, namely human health, ecosystem quality and resources. Keywords Life cycle assessment · Sodium-ion batteries · Electrospinning · Silicon-doped hematite fibers
* Angela Malara [email protected] 1
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, dell’Energia, dell’Ambiente e dei Materiali (DICEAM), Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy
2
Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Scienza e la Tecnologia dei Materiali (INSTM), 50121 Florence, Italy
3
Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali (DSM), Università di Milano Bicocca, 20125 Milan, Italy
4
Graphene Labs, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), 16163 Genoa, Italy
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1 Introduction Presently, LIBs are the primary electrochemical energy storage systems for portable devices, but the growing consumption of lithium and its limited availability restricted to few countries represent a serious concern for their future large-scale production costs. Chile has the most lithium reserves in the world by a large amount, followed, in terms of reserves, by Australia, the largest lithium-producing country in the world in 2018, China and Argentina (U.S. Geological Survey 2019). At the average 5% yearly growth rate in lithium mining necessary to pace up the demand increase, lithium reserves are expected to encounter severe shortage in less than 65 years (Hwang et al. 2017). As a consequence, in 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior has included lithium in th
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