Life cycle assessment of synthetic graphite: Inventories and impact assessment

The role of graphite as a raw material has become more important due to the urgency of curbing the climate change problem through electrification. Electrification requires batteries as the central technology in which graphite is widely used as an anode material. Investigating the environmental impacts of graphite is crucial, especially synthetic graphite, which dominates the market share of graphite. The environmental assessment was conducted using life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify the impacts of manufacturing 1 kg of anode-grade synthetic graphite from cradle-to-gate within the Chinese context by implementing economic allocation. The assessment included scenario analysis that explored the outcomes when the geographical area of the manufacturing process was relocated to other countries. Moreover, contribution analysis was performed to examine the environmental hotspots. The study reported an impact of 10.44 kg CO ₂ eq per 1 kg of synthetic graphite. Meanwhile, graphitization caused 81% of the overall climate change impact among seven production stages. When the contribution was classified based on the input-output parameters, more than 80% of the climate change impact originated from electricity consumption. The study presented comprehensive inventories for manufacturing synthetic graphite and demonstrated the importance of complete and reliable data and transparency for reproducibility. The study may assist stakeholders in making decisions to improve the impacts within the supply chain.