Page 97 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

78 Life Cycle Assessment of Wastewater Treatment

approach to environmental sustainability based on attention to the product life
cycle. This approach was subsequently confirmed in the Communication “Action
Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial
Policy” (SCP) in 2008, which emphasizes the need for tools for the assessment
and communication of the environmental performance of products, such as
LCA and the different types of environmental declarations that are based on it
(Environmental Product Declaration Carbon Footprint and Climate Declaration,
Water Footprint, etc.).
The aim was to encourage decoupling between economic growth and the mas-
sive use of natural resources and enable the transition to a low carbon economy, as
evidenced by the strategy of the European Commission “Energy 2020,” which aims
to increase the production of renewable energies by 20% by 2020.
This chapter deals with the description of a technological process for the
treatment and recovery of secondary raw materials starting from no-lead alka-
line batteries (zinc/manganese type). The primary advantage of this technologi-
cal choice is environmental protection due to the reduction of pollution at the end
of life of such materials. The recovery of metals from the recycling process is
expected to bring benefits to the environment, although it involves greater costs
compared with landfilling or incineration.

5.1.1 Background on Battery end of Life
There are different alternatives for the final disposition of batteries (Bernardes
et al., 2004):

• Landfill: To date, most household batteries, especially primary batteries,
are disposed of in MSW (municipal solid waste) and are sent to sanitary
landfills.
• Stabilization: This process represents a pre-treatment of batteries to avoid
the contact of metals with the environment in landfill. The process is not
much used because of the high costs involved.
• Incineration: This is used when household batteries are disposed of in
MSW and are sent to a municipal waste combustion facility. The incinera-
tion of batteries can cause the emission of mercury, cadmium, lead, and
dioxins into the environment.
• Recycling: Hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes can be
used to recycle metals present in the batteries. These recycling processes
are currently being studied in different parts of the world.

A literature review on battery recycling (Espinosa et al., 2004) reports the follow-
ing processes active nowadays:

• Sumitomo: A Japanese process totally based on pyrometallurgy. Its cost is
very high, and it is used to recycle all types of portable batteries. It is not
indicated for recycling Ni-Cd batteries.