Designing profitable supply chains for lithium-ion battery recycling in the United States

Majid Alipanah; Sunday Oluwadamilola Usman; Apurba Kumar Saha; Hongyue Jin; Majid Alipanah; Sunday Oluwadamilola Usman; Apurba Kumar Saha; Hongyue Jin

doi:10.3934/ctr.2024002

Clean Technologies and Recycling

2024, Volume 4, Issue 1: 22-42. doi: 10.3934/ctr.2024002

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Research article Special Issues

Designing profitable supply chains for lithium-ion battery recycling in the United States

Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering, University of Arizona, 1127 E. James E. Rogers Way, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, United States

Received: 05 February 2024 Revised: 24 May 2024 Accepted: 07 June 2024 Published: 20 June 2024

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has attracted lots of attention recently, due to the increasing demand for critical materials contained in LIBs, putting high pressure on their geological reserves. We evaluated the potential of bioleaching technology as a sustainable solution for recycling spent LIBs to help inform decision-making processes for stakeholders involved in LIB recycling supply chains. A supply chain model was developed to include required upstream processes with the objective of maximizing economic feasibility of LIB recycling through the technology. The model has been applied to the U.S. and an optimal supply chain configuration was identified, considering the major factors affecting the economic viability of the technology. The net present value of the supply chain was estimated to be ＄18.4 billion for operating over 10 years, achieving the maximum processing capacity of 900,000 tons of black mass per year. The economic viability of the technology was identified to be highly sensitive to the cost associated with purchasing black mass, which accounted for more than 60% of the total supply chain cost. The breakeven price of black mass was identified as ＄8.7/kg over which the supply chain was not economically sustainable. Additionally, we examined the non-cooperative scenarios where each tier tries to maximize its own profit to demonstrate how the overall profitability of the supply chain changes with different pricing strategies of sortation facilities and acid producers. We estimated that the maximum prices of non-recyclable paper and acid that the supply chain could tolerate were ＄0.89/kg and ＄8.5/kg, respectively, beyond which the supply chain was no longer sustainable.
- lithium-ion battery,
- circular economy,
- bioleaching,
- critical materials recovery,
- non-cooperative supply chain
Citation: Majid Alipanah, Sunday Oluwadamilola Usman, Apurba Kumar Saha, Hongyue Jin. Designing profitable supply chains for lithium-ion battery recycling in the United States[J]. Clean Technologies and Recycling, 2024, 4(1): 22-42. doi: 10.3934/ctr.2024002

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Abstract

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has attracted lots of attention recently, due to the increasing demand for critical materials contained in LIBs, putting high pressure on their geological reserves. We evaluated the potential of bioleaching technology as a sustainable solution for recycling spent LIBs to help inform decision-making processes for stakeholders involved in LIB recycling supply chains. A supply chain model was developed to include required upstream processes with the objective of maximizing economic feasibility of LIB recycling through the technology. The model has been applied to the U.S. and an optimal supply chain configuration was identified, considering the major factors affecting the economic viability of the technology. The net present value of the supply chain was estimated to be ＄18.4 billion for operating over 10 years, achieving the maximum processing capacity of 900,000 tons of black mass per year. The economic viability of the technology was identified to be highly sensitive to the cost associated with purchasing black mass, which accounted for more than 60% of the total supply chain cost. The breakeven price of black mass was identified as ＄8.7/kg over which the supply chain was not economically sustainable. Additionally, we examined the non-cooperative scenarios where each tier tries to maximize its own profit to demonstrate how the overall profitability of the supply chain changes with different pricing strategies of sortation facilities and acid producers. We estimated that the maximum prices of non-recyclable paper and acid that the supply chain could tolerate were ＄0.89/kg and ＄8.5/kg, respectively, beyond which the supply chain was no longer sustainable.

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