Carbon Footprint of Battery-Grade Lithium Chemicals in China

Lithium-ion batteries serve as a critical pillar in the low-carbon energy transition. China is the largest producer and consumer of battery-grade lithium chemicals, relying on domestic and global supply chains. However, a comprehensive analysis of the carbon footprint (CF) of lithium has not yet been reported, posing a challenge to promoting battery sustainability. Herein, we acquire plant-level production profiles in China, representing 80% of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) and 28% of lithium hydroxide (LiOH·H2O) production capacities. We demonstrate that the technical characteristics (e.g., ore quality, extraction technology, refinery efficiency, and fuel type) lead to wide disparities in plant-level CFs of lithium chemicals (6.3 to 36.8 t CO2eq/t Li2CO3), which aggregate the capacity-average CFs to be 13.3, 13.9, and 24.5 t CO2eq/t Li2CO3 for domestic brine-based, spodumene-based, and lepidolite-based lithium, respectively. We further identify that efficiency improvement, clean energy adoption, and technological advancement (e.g., nanofiltration for brine-based lithium) can lower the pathway-average CFs by 17–67%. For example, including the low-carbon lithium supply from South America, China's consumption-average CFs of battery-grade lithium can potentially decline from 12.6 t CO2eq/t Li2CO3 currently to 7.0–8.8 t CO2eq/t Li2CO3 around 2030.