Oct 4, 2018 - Life Cycle Assessment of a Vanadium Flow Battery ... Environmental impacts [%] during the production of the battery prototype per unit of kWh ...
13th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference Aveiro (Portugal) October 2-4, 2018
Life Cycle Assessment of a Vanadium Flow Battery J.R. Gouveia, A. Monteiro, T.M. Mata, A. Mendes, N.S. Caetano, A.A. Martins
Battery System components One Vanadium Redox Flow Battery prototype developed by LEPABE (Fig. 1 and 2) Two electrolyte storage tanks Two pumps a) Balance of System (BOS) components: monitoring system and cables Power: 5 kW Storage capacity: 18 kWh
Anolyte reservoir
Catholyte reservoir
b) pump
pump
Ionic membrane
Advantages Reliable with reduced maintenance Modular Long charge-discharge cycles Low storage losses and High efficiencies Avoided cross-contamination Battery life expectancy 20 years Electrolyte life expectancy over 100 years
BOS Fig.1. Vanadium Redox Flow Battery System.
What about the environmental performance? Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)[1,2] c)
Methodology
Energy
(1)
Emi s sions Wa s te
(2)
Ma teri als
(3)
The Goal & Scope is to identify: • The main potential environmental Fig.2. Vanadium RFB prototype developed by LEPABE. impacts occurring during production; • The key eco-design opportunities to improve the environmental performance of the overall system. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI): • Energy and material flows within the system boundaries (Fig.3.); • Primary data from the VRFB prototype design team; • Secondary data from available literature and the Ecoinvent database V.3.4., considering European conditions. Method: International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) 2011 Midpoint+ V.1.10 [3], using software SimaProTM V8.5.2.0.
Environment
Attributive cradle-to-gate LCA; Functional unit: 1 kWh of stored energy, i.e. the impacts are calculated per unit of stored energy;
System boundaries
BATTERY SYSTEM BOS e) a) d) b) c) Fig.3. System boundaries of the present study: (1) production, (2) processing and (3) assembly. Battery system components: a) VRFB, b) electrolyte tanks, and c) pumps. BOS: d) monitoring system and e) cables.
Results MFRRD Battery structure
Conclusions
Cell stack components and the vanadium electrolytes are the largest Vanadium electrolytes contributors to the potential environmental impacts in the production Waste phase;
FE AP
Storage tanks Pumps
POF
BOS OD
Transportation
CC 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Fig.4. Environmental impacts [%] during the production of the battery prototype per unit of kWh stored energy. Impact categories: CC – climate change, OD – ozone depletion, POF – photochemical ozone formation, AP – acidification potential, FE – freshwater eutrophication, MFRRD – mineral, fossil & renewable resource depletion.
References [1]International organization for standardization, ISO 14040: Environmental management - Life Cycle Assessment -
Principles and Framework, 2006. [2] International organization for standardization, ISO 14044: Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines, 2006. [3] European Commission – Joint Research Centre – Institute for Environment and Sustainability, The International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook – Recommendations for Life Cycle Impact Assessment in the European context – based on existing environmental impact assessment models and factors, 2012.
The impacts can be significantly reduced by using recycled and local materials or components; The vanadium electrolytes contribute 65 % to acidification and 75 % to the mineral, fossil and renewable resource depletion, mainly due to production of the sulphuric acid present in the electrolytes;
Future work Planned future work involves assessing the environmental performance of the battery as an integrating part of an energy production and supply system. A cradle-to-grave LCA and an Economic and Social-LCA for a full Sustainability performance evaluation will also be conducted.
Acknowledgements Authors thank the financial support of projects “SunStorage - Harvesting and storage of solar energy”, with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016387, funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through COMPETE 2020 Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (OPCI), and to FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P., for funding project IF/01093/2014/CP1249/CT0003, research grants IF/01093/2014 and SFRH/BPD/112003/2015, and financial support of POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy - LEPABE, UID/EQU/00511/2013) funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020POCI and by national funds through FCT.
