Advancing chemical hazard assessment with decision analysis: A case study on lithium-ion and redox flow batteries used for energy storage

Batteries are important for promoting renewable energy, but, like most engineered products, they contain multiple hazardous materials. The purpose of this study is to evaluate industrial-scale batteries using GreenScreen (R) for Safer Chemicals, an established chemical hazard assessment (CHA) framework, and to develop a systematic, transparent methodology to quantify the CHA results, harmonize them, and aggregate them into single-value hazard scores, which can facilitate quantitative comparison and a robust evaluation of data gaps, inconsistencies, and uncertainty through the implementation of carefully selected scenarios and stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA). Using multiple authoritative toxicity data sources, six battery products are evaluated: three lithium-ion batteries (lithium iron phosphate, lithium nickel cobalt manganese hydroxide, and lithium manganese oxide), and three redox flow batteries (vanadium redox, zinc-bromine, and all-iron). The CHA results indicate that many materials in these batteries, including reagents and intermediates, inherently exhibit high hazard; therefore, safer materials should be identified and considered in future designs. The scenario analysis and SMAA, combined, provide a quantitative evaluation framework to support the decision-making needed to compare alternative technologies. Thus, this study highlights specific strategies to reduce the use of hazardous materials in complex engineered products before they are widely used in this rapidly-expanding industry sector.

Automated summary

This study evaluates industrial-scale batteries using the GreenScreen(R) for Safer Chemicals framework and provides a systematic methodology to quantify the results and enable comparison and evaluation. The results highlight the high hazard of many materials in batteries and the need to identify safer alternatives. The study emphasizes strategies to reduce the use of hazardous materials in complex engineered products.