IN SUMMARY
Graphite is in around 96% of lithium-ion battery anodes, with each battery needing 10 to 15 times more graphite than lithium. Despite that, its environmental footprint is often overlooked and, more importantly, underestimated. Producing anode-grade graphite is highly energy-intensive, and much of the world’s supply is made in coal-dominated grids such as Inner Mongolia, where low-cost power carries a high carbon cost. Minviro modelled natural and synthetic graphite production using higher-quality, more recent data and found the true climate impact can be up to ten times higher than published values.
The databases understate the impact severely. For coal-based grids like Inner Mongolia, the calculated carbon footprint of producing 1 kg of anode-grade graphite is around 800% higher than the commercial database value for natural graphite, and around 1,000% higher for synthetic.
Grid mix is the decisive variable. With all other inputs identical, where graphite is processed, and how that electricity is generated, can cause large variation between operations, especially for synthetic graphite, which depends on electricity at every stage.
Natural and synthetic differ in their hotspots. Synthetic graphite’s impact is dominated by energy use in graphitisation and roasting plus embodied petroleum coke, while natural graphite’s impact comes more from energy in purification alongside reagents and fuel.
Graphite, the overlooked anode material
Graphite is the default anode material in lithium-ion batteries because it meets the voltage requirements of most common cathodes, is relatively affordable, and is light, porous and durable. Around 96% of LIB anodes use natural or synthetic graphite, and each battery needs 10 to 15 times more graphite than lithium, making it the second most common component in most chemistries by mass. Producing 1 million EVs requires roughly 75,000 tonnes of graphite. Battery-grade graphite comes either from natural graphite ore or from synthetic graphite made by treating a coke-based precursor, and China dominates global production of both. Despite this scale, graphite’s environmental footprint has received far less attention than lithium, nickel or cobalt.
How the study was built
Minviro carried out a cradle-to-gate LCA with a functional unit of 1 kg of anode-grade graphite, covering the full production route for both natural and synthetic graphite. New life cycle impact assessments were run on data from natural and synthetic producers operating in high-impact, coal-based grid regions, reflecting real existing supply chains where energy is cheap but carbon-intensive. These new results were then compared against representative academic values for natural and synthetic graphite, and against the best-fit entry for mixed battery-grade graphite in a commercial LCA database. The aim was to test how well existing data captures the real impact of production, particularly the contribution of the electricity grid mix.