As the global market for lithium-ion batteries continues to grow, sourcing alternative materials for battery cell production gains interest and has an ever increasing potential to reduce ...environmental impact during the production phase. Around 97% of the produced Li-ion batteries contain a graphite-based anode, coated on a copper foil. In this Life Cycle Assessment the potential reduction of environmental impact over various categories during the production of batteries when using an anode production method by laser sintering Si-waste powder in an innovative process is investigated. The study provides an indication of environmental feasibility of the suggested production process, comparing the technical innovative process to currently available anode production processes. The impact comparison is made on the level of anode production (cradle to gate) with the potential to zoom out to the full battery production process in future work. Current results indicate that the overall impact of production increases 27% when using the suggested anode production process, with the results being sensitive to the amount of energy required for sintering and the allocation of impact towards the Si-waste. The impact of this switch of anode production method for the full Li-ion battery production will depend on the affected charge capacity and lifetime duration of an assembled battery module.
Western Australia is an ideal location for wave energy conversion with some of the highest energy density waves in the world. Renewable energy technologies have had an emerging presence in Australia, ...seen as a vehicle to decarbonise energy generation and provide a sustainable future. This paper examines the environmental and economic feasibility of energy generation from wave energy conversion in Western Australia by undertaking an Eco-Efficiency Analysis (EEA). The environmental impacts of wave energy converters (WEC) were assessed by application of a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) while the economic performance considered the Life Cycle Costing (LCC). An eco-efficiency portfolio was developed to visualise the sustainability of coastal energy generation options – wave generation, offshore wind and diesel generation – finding that wave generation was the most eco-efficient option and could be deemed a sustainable energy generation technology. The LCA results were comparable to literature, validating the impact assessment. The proposed wave device was estimated to produce a global warming potential of 27.3 kg CO2 eq/MWh and have a levelised cost of energy at 134 $AUD/MWh. The environmental impact of the device was significantly lower than alternative coastal energy generation methods in Western Australia while the associated cost of energy remained competitive. This favourable assessment using the eco-efficiency framework confirmed that the application of WEC in Western Australia would be an eco-efficient option and that research should be undertaken to develop this technology as a key player in the transition to a sustainable energy industry.
Transitioning towards a more circular economy achieving sustainable business requires both radical change and collective efforts. Succeeding with the development of circular business models means ...addressing the challenge at hand from several levels including value chain, organizational, process and product. Increased competitive advantage through offering more circular business models are enticing opportunities explaining why value chains collectively address these challenges. At the product level of ‘sustainability-by-design’, extended product-lifetime is often a first go-to with objectives of achieving increased sustainability or reduced environmental footprint. One challenge is acknowledging and aligning all aspects constituting the product lifetime, this being technical, economic, and actual time in use - where the latter reflect the end user behaviors. Overcoming these challenges requires products that are designed to encourage the customer and end user to take sustainable choice when acquiring the product, during its lifetime, and performing correct disposal at end of product lifetime. This paper reports preliminary findings from an ongoing research project with a case from the Norwegian furniture industry. The objective of the research project is to reduce the case product environmental footprint by 50%. Achieving this objective requires a methodology and mind-set of radical change. As an initial baseline we have conducted a life cycle analysis (LCA) utilizing the SimaPro software identifying the product current environmental footprint. This forms the baseline for questioning specific components, their function and their choice of material and design. The research question addressed in this paper is how to develop circular products and new business models enforcing sustainable behavior both for the manufacturer, its supply chain and the end customer/user? The majority of the furniture supply chain are partners in the research project; hence this paper takes on a view of the design process as a collective process in an industrial context contributing to the sustainability-by-design discussion.
Ghana’s population is in a steady growth, which is accompanied by increasing energy demand. At the same time a significant proportion of the population lack access to the electricity grid. Within the ...framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) access to energy shall be available for everyone (SDG 7). Solar Mini Grids can be used to meet this growing energy demand and give environmentally friendly access to energy in remote regions. Since Solar Mini Grids can be complex systems that require many components such as photovoltaic modules, charge controllers, cables, and battery storage it is crucial to analyze the environmental impacts of these Mini Grids considering the full life cycle. For this purpose, a generic Excel based LCA model has been created to show the optimization potentials of individual system components of Solar Mini Grids and analyze the most environmentally friendly construction. Results for the first case study at the Don Bosco Mini Grid in Tema show that the emissions are highly dependent on the technology and capacity of the energy storage as well as the utilization rate. The utilization rate describes the ratio of the consumed electricity to the produced electricity for cases where a feed in to the national grid is not possible. Therefore, it is important to design the Mini Grid and the energy storage beforehand considering local conditions in a way the environmental impact over the Solar Mini Grid life cycle can be optimized. This can be achieved by using the generic LCA model developed in this paper.
In recent work, heat-technical modeling, life cycle assessment, and rehabilitation of the vernacular adobe wall house is discussed. Our topic choice is based on the fact that a significant part of ...the Hungarian rural housing stock consist of adobe-walled buildings. The adobe wall construction is especially perfect for the seasonal climatic equalizing, which property has increasing ecological importance due to the effect of growing global warming up. Largely, these adobe-walled houses are part of our cultural heritage, therefore they are worth to preserving. Finally, their constructional conservation, energetical rehabilitation and also maintenance problems are briefly described..
The combination of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and water electrolysis technologies can be used for the production of basic chemicals from carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen. Here, we present ...a life cycle assessment (LCA) on a cradle-to-gate basis for the production of the following large volume organic chemicals: methanol, ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, and mixed xylenes. Investigated process chains comprise the following technologies: CO2 capture from an industrial point-source or from the atmosphere through direct air capture (DAC); alkaline water electrolysis for hydrogen production; methanol synthesis; methanol-to-olefins and methanol-to-aromatics synthesis including aromatics separation. Electricity is supplied by offshore wind turbines. The system boundary includes all relevant processes from cradle to gate. A scenario was set up by exchanging the background processes for the production of important infrastructure materials like aluminum, copper, steel, and concrete with future processes that are less resource intensive, less carbon intensive and include higher recycling rates (e.g., electric arc furnaces for steel production). LCA results show that the synthesis of the investigated chemicals from CCU processes will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 88–97%, compared to fossil-based production routes, when electricity from offshore wind turbines is used. At the same time, other environmental impacts like eutrophication and ozone depletion will increase. The main contributors to the environmental impacts are the energy supply for water electrolysis and direct air capture. Replacement of all plants for the production of the investigated products in Germany with CCU processes would lead to a 2–7% higher total primary energy demand for the whole country. At the same time, an overall reduction of the German GHG emissions by 6% is achieved, when using offshore wind power for these processes only. The future scenario using improved background technologies leads to a further small reduction of GHG emissions and largely reduces other environmental impacts. We therefore identify the reduction of emissions through improved base material production processes and recycling of aluminum, copper, steel and concrete as main objectives to reduce negative impacts for the production of basic chemicals from CCU technologies.
To combat global warming, industry needs to find ways to reduce its carbon footprint. One way this can be done is by re-use of industrial flue gases to produce value-added chemicals. Prime example ...feedstocks for the chemical industry are the three flue gases produced during conventional steel production: blast furnace gas (BFG), basic oxygen furnace gas (BOFG), and coke oven gas (COG), due to their relatively high CO, CO
2
, or H
2
content, allowing the production of carbon-based chemicals such as methanol or polymers. It is essential to know for decision-makers if using steel mill gas as a feedstock is more economically favorable and offers a lower global warming impact than benchmark CO and H
2
. Also, crucial information is which of the three steel mill gases is the most favorable and under what conditions. This study presents a method for the estimation of the economic value and global warming impact of steel mill gases, depending on the amount of steel mill gas being utilized by the steel production plant for different purposes at a given time and the economic cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required to replace these usages. Furthermore, this paper investigates storage solutions for steel mill gas. Replacement cost per ton of CO is found to be less than the benchmark for both BFG (50–70 €/ton) and BOFG (100–130 €/ton), and replacement cost per ton of H
2
(1800–2100 €/ton) is slightly less than the benchmark for COG. Of the three kinds of steel mill gas, blast furnace gas is found to be the most economically favorable while also requiring the least emissions to replace per ton of CO and CO
2
. The GHG emissions replacement required to use BFG (0.43–0.55 tons-CO
2
-eq./ton CO) is less than for conventional processes to produce CO and CO
2
, and therefore BFG, in particular, is a potentially desirable chemical feedstock. The method used by this model could also easily be used to determine the value of flue gases from other industrial plants.
•This work is based on multiyear perspective analysis.•It includes the impact of the initial orchard establishment tasks.•It analyses the variability of the emissions related to annual orchard ...yield.•Data used were collected directly from a real orchard.•Apple production systems have been analysed at productive and also environmental level.
The study compares two apple training systems. Central axis and Fruiting wall, to provide useful environmental information to fruit producers, and also to detect the emission differences between them in terms of Carbon footprint. The data used in this study were directly collected from apple orchards located in Catalonia nine years of real agricultural data are available. The functional unit to performance the analysis is to produce 1kg of apple fruit.
According to results, in both systems, the Fertilization stage was identified as the main contributor to Carbon footprint (44%). The impact of the use of machinery and the infrastructure involved in orchard production are important factors to be taken into account when training systems are compared, because depending on the yield the emisisons per kg of fruit produced may increase. The Central axis system has Carbon footprint values of 0.207 KgCO2eq; and the Fruiting wall system, 0.195 KgCO2-eq. Thus, the Central axis system has 6% higher values.
The economic results reveal that the Fruiting wall system is more profitable than the Central axis. This greater profitability is based on higher production and lower cost of pruning and hand thinning during the period of full production. Both factors compensate for the higher costs of planting and management in the early years.
The construction industry is considered to be among the major sectors that contribute significantly toward the emission of GHGs in our environment, which have a major effect on the climate change, ...and is approximately responsible for about 19 percent of the overall GHG emission globally, rendering it a pollution hotspot requiring urgent mitigation measures. Unfortunately, there are few studies on this subject to help construction companies meet their low-carbon targets. As a result, this paper reviewed the contributions of researchers across the globe towards carbon dioxide and other GHGs emissions from the industry. After a systematic review of some of these studies, it was found that the majority of researchers focused primarily on a specific feature of the construction industry, a case study of a particular country/city or region, using the Life Cycle Assessment approach. And, even those who have studied similar aspects such as cement or steel, have all used different methodologies, units, and techniques of reporting. As such, a comparison between the findings of the literature is unrealistic. Despite this, the scope of the emission from the construction industry is remarkably clear, and the carbon findings can be found throughout the literature.
PDF
