Design of the Transportation Network for Recycling Li-ion Batteries in the UAE

Abstract

The environmental concerns resulted in a global shift toward implementing environmentally friendly practices and solutions. Part of this transitions is the raised popularity in electrical vehicles production and usage. However, using electrical vehicles will result in having large amounts of spent LIB that need to be recycled in the future. Therefore, this study provides a simple design of reverse transportation network for spent LIB. A UAE study is conducted using AMPL software to obtain optimal solution. The results exhibited that for UAE base scenario, recycling capacity required is 12,000 tons per year as this is the highest capacity reached by year 2040. Also, only 2 inspection sites and 1 recycling facility are needed to satisfy the spent LIB expected supply. To add up, the sensitivity analysis demonstrates that recycling capacity and recycling plant capital costs are the most impactful key drivers on the optimal cost of the optimization problem. However, the transportation cost impact was insignificant compared to the other parameters. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis might differ if implemented for different countries since transportation cost is influenced by traveling distances, countries with larger geographical areas transportation cost impact might be much higher. To further improve this study, some parameters and modifications can easily be imported into the established model. The study can be improved by expanding the model to include spent LIB from consumer electronics and EVs, or by expanding the network to cover the whole GCC region and not only UAE. Moreover, other cost parameters can be considered such as handling and operational cost at inspection and recycling facilities. Also, different transportation modes can be included.

Date of Award	Dec 2022
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Ahmad Mayyas (Supervisor)