Closing the Technospheric Flows of Toxic Metals: Modeling Lead Losses from a Lead‐Acid Battery System for Sweden

Abstract

This article investigates technological opportunities to close technospheric flows in a large-scale use of a toxic and scarce metal, lead. It analyzes the lead flows and losses to the environment in a modeled lead-acid battery system for Sweden. The modeled system is built on today's technology for production and recycling of lead and batteries while the recovery of used batteries is varied. The analysis shows that the losses from the production and recycling processes are so low that consumption losses and the recovery rate dominate the total system losses. In a steady state with very high recovery of used batteries, the system losses are small compared to natural lead flows and to the historical lead losses during the industrialization. The modeling assumes that all the secondary lead goes back into the production of new batteries even though in Swedish battery manufacturing today, primary lead dominates the lead supply for lead oxide production. The possibilities for increased secondary lead use in the production of lead oxide are also discussed