The following study aims to make a comparison between the analysis of the parametric values of
lithium-ion batteries by Manjong , which uses an Ecoinvent 3.2 and 3.7 database from 2021 and
Nelson work which was fromed on Arda,the NTNU matlab-based Arda code for LCA analysis,
and the same numerical data in Brightway which use Ecoinvent 3.9.1, a database from 2023. To
perform the analysis, this study is concerned with updating and adapting a life cycle analysis
(LCA) of battery minerals using Brightway software. The original analysis used the Ecoinvent
databases versions 3.2 and 3.7 to assess the environmental impact of the extraction and processing
of key minerals including aluminium, copper, manganese, nickel, graphite, lithium even cobalt, but
this is not compared by the study of Manjong. The model has been translated to Python and uses
Brightway to perform the LCA calculations. The model can use different versions of Ecoinvent
even though in this study we are using the last version (i.e. 3.9.1) in Brightway to incorporate
more recent results.
The use of Brightway has allowed us to re-model the model used previously, but using the same
data, adapted to the life cycle analysis of the batteries. The results of this process, show that
although there are variations in the GWP estimates, due to database updates and technological
changes, these variations are in line with expectations when compared to previous studies. I think
the reasons for moving to Brightway are that it is a Python-based tool that enables developing
more flexible, re-usable and extensible models than using the previous excel-Matlab program.
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