Environmental impacts batteries

The cathode material is stainless steel. The lead produced by this method analyzes 99.99 + %. The overall power consumption is less than 1 kWh/kg of lead, so that the electrolytic process for treating spent batteries has much less of an environmental impact than the conventional pyrometaUurgical process. 

The industrial economy depends heavily on electrochemical processes. Electrochemical systems have inherent advantages such as ambient temperature operation, easily controlled reaction rates, and minimal environmental impact (qv). Electrosynthesis is used in a number of commercial processes. Batteries and fuel cells, used for the interconversion and storage of energy, are not limited by the Carnot efficiency of thermal devices. Corrosion, another electrochemical process, is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars aimuaUy in the United States alone (see Corrosion and CORROSION control). Electrochemical systems can be described using the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport phenomena. 

Products where the main environmental impact comes at end of life. Products including hazardous materials are often expensive and difficult to dispose of safely. Batteries are an example of this class. 

Antimony battery grids, composition, 3 52t Antimony bromide sulfide, 3 63 Antimony chloride oxide, 3 62t Antimony compounds, 3 56-87 analysis, 3 80-81 environmental impact, 3 81 health and safety factors, 3 81 inorganic, 3 57-67, 62t organoantimony compounds, 3 67—80... 

On the other hand, Aboul-Kassim [1] assessed the environmental impact of hazardous waste materials in landfills by (1) characterizing the different organic compound fractions present in such wastes and their leachates, (2) determining the toxic effect of each fraction and individual organic compounds, and (3) studying the chemodynamics (i.e., fate and transport) of such leachates by using a battery of laboratory experiments (such as sorption/desorption, photolysis, volatilization, biodegradation). 

Along with the toxicity test battery, physico-chemical analysis of waste and each leachate produced either in the prerequisite study (i.e. Tier I in Figure 2) or in the WASTOXHAS procedure are useful to understand the main processes that can influence release (and rate of release) of pollutants from a solid matrix. In this sense, ecotoxicological and physico-chemical approaches are complementary to ensure a sound and reliable assessment of the potential environmental impacts of solid wastes. 

High safety. One advantage of the double-layer capacitor is that it uses environmentally friendly materials in contrast to the rechargeable batteries using heavy metals. An electrolyte material with high safety and low environmental impact is desired. 

Battery price is calculated on the basis of the material and manufacturing costs. The cost of the active materials is directly related to their availability. With the exception of Na-S, Fe-air, and a few other exploratory systems, all EV battery candidates are based on materials whch are either not too abundant worldwide, reside in diluted ores, or can be extracted viably only from ores located geographically in a few areas. The Imports may be subject to politically Induced shortages or stoppages, in analogy to the gasoline situation. In some cases, even the domestic resource utilization may become prohibitive because of the environmental impact. 

Battery performance is measured in terms of voltage and capacity. The voltage is determined by the chemistry of the metals and electrolytes used in the battery. The capacity is the number of electrons that can be obtained from a battery. Since current is the number of electrons released per unit time, cell capacity is the current supplied by a cell over time and is normally measure in ampere-hours. Battery specialists experiment with many different redox combinations and try to balance the energy output with the costs of manufacturing the battery. Other factors, such as battery weight, shelf life, and environmental impact also factor into the battery s design. 

Total life cycle analysis (LCA) is increasingly being utilized to establish the relative human health and environmental impacts of many products and processes. In these analyses, the total impacts, from the production of the raw materials for the product, through its manufacture, use and ultimate disposal are established, and then usually compared to other similar products. Environmentalists and regulators have used these principles to favor the displacement of one product in the marketplace with an allegedly more environmentally friendly product. Very often, however, it has been found that one product may exhibit high negative LCA impacts in one area, while another product may be deficient in another area. Such appears to be the case when various battery chemistries are compared. 

Obviously, the first and most important factor in the inventory analysis stage is the overall composition of the battery system. Technically, a life cycle analysis can only be specifically performed on a specific battery composition, and there is often great variety in the compositions for batteries that nominally all belong to the same family. In addition, a rigorous life cycle analysis should consider every material in the battery, no matter how minute the environmental impacts may appear to be. The tendency in most life cycle analyses on battery systems to date has been to concentrate on the hazardous materials or heavy metals contained in those batteries while ignoring contributions which may arise from greater amounts of less high-profile substances. For example, life... 

The SEI data is based mainly on earlier emission numbers for NiCd battery manufacturing, whereas the OECD monograph data represents updated emissions in the European Union as of 1994 compared to total volumes of cadmium utilized for NiCd battery production, based on information from the International Cadmium Association. All of this data indicates that most of the cadmium remains in the product and is not lost during NiCd battery manufacturing. A similar conclusion can be inferred with respect to nickel and cobalt, the other materials in a NiCd battery which might be likely to be regarded as hazardous and contribute to an adverse environmental impact. Iron, of... 

There is really very little consistency across these environmental impact assessment methods except that the Swedish and Dutch systems rate cadmium the battery metal with the most adverse effects, while the Tellus and Ecoscarcity Methods rate mercury the most adverse battery metal. Zinc, manganese, nickel and even lead have relatively low effects except in the U.S. EPA system, which however is the one system which is most closely tied to actual quantitative assessments of enviromnental and human health toxicological end points. What is very surprising is the relatively low impact values for mercury in the Swedish and Dutch schemes given the general worldwide concern for mercury. 

If the total energy and emissions of a battery during its entire lifetime production, use, maintenance and disposal are established, then divided by the total lifetime energy of the battery, the total emissions per kilowatt-hour of energy may be derived. These are separated into specific materials, usually elements, compounds or groups of compounds, for which specific environmental and/or human health impact assessment values are available. Utilizing these values, the overall relative life cycle environmental impact of a particular battery system may be established and compared to other battery systems. As previously discussed, these analyses involve many assumptions and... 

The human health and environmental factors are then multiplied by the exposure potential which includes parameters expressing biological oxygen demand half-life, hydrolysis half-life and an aquatic bioconcentration factor. It is felt that this system is probably one of the better impact assessment systems available today because it assigns impact values based on quantitative scientific data rather than subjective concern over a chemical which is often based on perception rather than scientific data. On the other hand, the bioaccumulation and persistence factors have already been shown to be not particularly relevant to metals per se. In the future, alternative evaluation systems such as solubility and transformation characteristics of metals and metal compounds, and models such as the biotic ligand model will be found to be much more appropriate for evaluating the human health and environmental impacts of battery metals. 

Table IX. Environmental Impact Values per Kilowatt-Hour Lifetime Energy For AA-Sized NiCd Batteries at Two Recycling Levels...

The relative contributions to the environmental impact values for AA-sized NiCd batteries are further shown graphically in Figure 7 as functions of both battery... 

Figure 7. The Effects of Recycling, Performance and Composition on the Environmental Impact Values for AA-Sized NiCd Batteries...

Unlike lead-acid and silver oxide batteries, which have historically been collected and recycled due to their economic value, collection and recycling of general purpose batteries is currently undertaken at a cost to the waste generator. All responsible manufacturers whatever the industry, recognise a need to protect the environment and promote sustainable development. However this is rarely possible at zero cost. In the late 1980 s many battery systems still contain a significant proportion of toxic elements whose environmental impact after use needed to be controlled. 

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