How to bridge the gap between laboratory and industry-scale life cycle assessments in battery research: a review

Schommer, Alexander; Gutsch, Moritz; Leker, Jens

Abstract

Battery technologies are essential for achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, but their large-scale production and recycling cause notable environmental burdens. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is therefore crucial for evaluating the environmental performance of battery technologies. While conventional LCAs mainly address mature systems, emerging battery technologies are often assessed at laboratory scale and thus require methodological upscaling to estimate industrial scale impacts. Our structured literature search identifies 28 peer-reviewed studies published between 2014 and 2025. Since electrode materials are typically developed and optimized at laboratory scale, environmental assessments must address both process scaling and transfer to commercially relevant cell formats, including prismatic, pouch, and cylindrical cells. Product scaling can be supported by battery-specific tools such as BatPaC and CellEst 3.0, which enable representative bills of materials. Across the reviewed studies, five main approaches were identified for scaling material and energy flows from laboratory to industrial production. Battery cell manufacturing can also be upscaled using literature-based inventories or dedicated battery modeling tools. However, uncertainty remains insufficiently addressed, and process-related scaling parameters are rarely considered. Overall, the review underscores the need to integrate sustainability assessment and industrial scaling perspectives at early stages of battery development to support targeted improvements while implementation remains feasible.