Environmental impact assessment of aluminum electrolytic capacitors in a product family from the manufacturer’s perspective

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AECs) are a type of indispensable electronic components in modern electronic and electrical products. They are designed and manufactured by a series of product specifications to meet the requirements of a variety of application scenarios. Efficient assessment of the potential environmental impact on AECs with different specification parameters in the product family is essential to implement sustainable product development for the manufacturers.

A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the environmental impact of 38 types of AECs in a product family from the manufacturer’s perspective. In the study, 100,000 AECs with specific rated working voltage (among 16 V, 25 V, and 35 V) and rated capacitance (among 4.7 to 6800 μF) produced by a capacitor manufacturer from Nantong, China, were selected as the functional unit. In the life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis, a parametric LCI model for the product family was established by combining product family parameterization and production process parameterization. The impact assessment method, ReCiPe2016 (midpoint, hierarchist perspective), was used to quantitatively calculate the potential environmental impacts of the AECs.

Based on the generated LCIs of the AECs and ReCiPe2016, fossil depletion, climate change, and terrestrial ecotoxicity were identified as the key environmental impact categories in the production stage for the AEC product family. The environmental impacts of fossil consumption, climate change, and terrestrial ecotoxicity per functional unit ranged from 263 to 6777 kg oil equivalent, 884 to 23,760 kg CO₂ equivalent, and 573 to 47,340 kg 1,4-DB equivalent, respectively. The environmental impact differences among the product family due to the differences in AECs’ specifications were compared. Aluminum ingots (anode), aluminum ingots (cathode), case, and electricity are the main contributors to the environmental impacts, accounting for over 85% of carbon emissions, over 70% of fossil consumption, and over 62% of terrestrial ecotoxicity. Sensitivity analysis of 12 parameters was investigated.

The results and the conclusions provide a solid foundation for capacitor manufacturers to carry out eco-design development, environmental management, and green marketing. The effect of eco-design optimization and process improvement of the AECs can be quantitatively compared through the established model. Furthermore, the study supports the application and promotion of the AEC eco-label with specific specifications in the AEC industry. The methodology also gives guidance for the LCA studies of product families of other electronic and electrical components.