Research progress on occupational hazards in lithium battery industry and their health risks

Abstract

Lithium batteries are widely used in energy storage, power, and other fields due to their advantages such as high performance and low cost. With the rapid development of the lithium battery industry, its production is constantly growing. However, the identification of occupational hazards and assessment of their health risks in lithium battery industry has rarely been reported. The composition of lithium batteries is complex and involves large numbers of compounds. Besides the traditional occupational hazards, workers may be exposed to many emerging chemicals throughout the production of raw materials, assembly and disassembly of lithium batteries. Therefore, this paper introduced the process chain of lithium battery production, analyzed the underlying occupational hazards in the industry, reviewed the health impacts of typical occupational hazards, and proposed the future research needs according to the current status of research on occupational exposure and health hazards in the lithium battery industry.

Keywords

• lithium battery
• occupational hazard
• anode material
• cathode material
• electrolyte
• flame retardant additive
• health risk