— Furthermore, this paper aims at closing existing data gaps by providing transparent primary data from a Chinese graphite producer from 2019 and assessing the environmental impacts (cradle-to-gate) in form of a life cycle assessment (LCA) for a vertically integrated graphite production.

Learn how life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be used to measure the environmental effects of products or services, pinpointing areas for impact mitigation. This specific white paper is focused on graphite.

 — Jurisdictions extracting energy transition metals in low-risk contexts are positioned to develop and maintain safeguards against mining-related social and environmental risk factors.

Environmental impact classification factors for many graphite products and projects are significantly underestimated in previous LCA databases due to poor data quality, conservative energy contributions or omitting upstream scope 3 emissions (i.e., embodied impact of consumables).

 — But research has shown that natural graphite mining can cause dust emissions, and the purification of battery-grade anode products requires high quantities of reagents such as sodium hydroxide...

 — Climate-change impacts of graphite production. Research has shown that natural graphite mining can cause dust emissions. The purification of battery-grade anode products requires high quantities of sodium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid, which may be harmful to both human health and the environment. Around 75,000 tonnes of graphite is …

 — Given the growing importance of graphite in energy storage technologies, a team of Northwestern researchers has conducted a study exploring ways to reduce reliance on imports of the in high-demand mineral, which powers everything from electric vehicles (EVs) to cell phones.

 — Direct recycling offers the lowest impact by physically separating battery components (graphite, aluminum, copper) and recovering the functional cathode structure without decomposition into substituent elements, hence accomplishing greater GHG emission reductions (37–42% for NCX).

 — Laboratory-scale recycling is scaled up into pilot-scale processes able to treat 100 kg of spent graphite. With values ranging from 0.53 to 9.76 kg·CO 2 equiv. per 1 kg of graphite, energy consumption and waste …

 — To identify the environmental costs of producing natural and synthetic anode-grade graphite more accurately, Minviro modelled the direct and embodied impacts contained within the production process using more recent and higher quality data.