Graduation Year

2023

Date of Submission

1-2023

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Environment, Economics, and Politics (EEP)

Reader 1

Rakesh Krishnamoorthy Iyer

Reader 2

Katie Purvis-Roberts

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Abstract

The Lithium-Ion battery is one of the most widely used rechargeable battery technologies today. Its applications span a wide set of categories from transportation, stationary storage, and powering consumer technology such as cell phones. The most pervasive and commercially available version of the Lithium-Ion cell today uses a porous liquid electrolyte and graphite-based anode. The non-solid character of these components yields a number of performance and safety disadvantages for the battery. Solid state Lithium batteries, which substitute the non-solid electrolyte and anode of the Lithium-Ion battery with solid versions, are a potential solution to the performance and safety concerns of Lithium-Ion batteries. This paper will first investigate the existing life cycle analysis data available on the most promising solid-state battery chemistries and assess if their global warming potentials fall in line with the non-solid-state batteries being used commercially today. Lastly, it will assess the significance of the rare earth elements found in solid-state battery chemistries and how they may or may not contribute to the challenge of bringing solid-state batteries to market.

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