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Erschienen in:
2011 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel
Challenges for LCAs of Complex Systems: The Case of a Large-Scale Precious Metal Refinery Plant
verfasst von : Anna Stamp, Christina E. M. Meskers, Markus Reimer, Patrick Wäger, Hans-Jörg Althaus, Roland W. Scholz
Erschienen in: Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Management
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
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Umicore Precious Metal Refining (UPMR) runs a high-tech industrial metal refinery which recovers 17 different metals from end-of-life consumer products and from by-products of the non-ferrous industry. We present an approach for an attributive gate-to-gate LCA study of this system, which is characterised by multi-input/multi-output processes, changing feed compositions and time lags. We propose five assumptions to reduce the complexity of the highly dynamic system. We compiled inventory data for over thirty sub-processes and allocated it over the metals passing the sub-process by either a mass-based or metal revenue based allocation. The exemplary results for rhodium, platinum, tellurium and copper (impact assessment method: global warming potential) show a high dependence of allocation choice and different patterns of the metals for metal revenue based allocation due to the high volatility of prices.