Outlook of EV battery pack design trends : Assessment of trend impact from a recycling perspective

Abstract: Electrification is essential to decarbonise the transport sector, which accounts for the highest share of greenhouse gas emissions by all sectors. The transition requires a large amount of batteries which bring challenges, not least when it comes to raw material supply and sustainability issues during the mineral mining. Long-term battery recycling is one way to address these challenges. To achieve an efficient recycling process the implementation of lifecycle perspectives in the EV battery pack design phase is of great importance. One of the major activities in the recycling process is the battery disassembly, which requires standardisation and design simplifications to minimize labour time and facilitate automated disassembly. Some of the most important design features is component standardisation, linear pack design and decreased number of parts, including screws, fasteners, and modules, which applies for all pack designs. In recent years new EV battery pack designs have entered the market, which has an improved performance in terms of energy density and cost per kWh. The development of these pack designs is strongly interacting with improvements in the cell design and cell chemistry. The overarching design trend is moving towards battery packs which remove modules, such as Cell-to-pack, and where the battery is integrated as a structural part in the vehicle frame, such as Cell-to-chassis. However, there are uncertainties about the impact of these design trends on the battery disassembly and recycling, which need to be investigated. Comparisons between the new trends and the traditional Module-to-pack design indicate that Cell-to-pack brings advantages to the recycling process as it usually contains less components and does not require labour to disassemble the modules. The chassis-integrated designs need more research to draw general conclusions, but the recyclability may not exceed the Cell-to-pack as the use of structural adhesives and chassis integration likely bring aggravating circumstances on the disassembly. Besides recyclability, the new pack designs also have a strategic impact on the actors in the value chain. EV battery packs with high recyclability should also be in all actors’ interest when moving towards a circular economy, as the recycling cost will be distributed along the entire value chain.