Skip to main content

2012 | Buch

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Light-Weight Eco-composites

verfasst von: Miao Guo

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Buchreihe : Springer Theses

insite
SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

Miao Guo's PhD thesis provides scientific insights into the environmental issues related to biocomposites based on starch-polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) blends. The author contributes significantly to the methodological issues underlying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling approach. As well as presenting complete LCA inventories using primary data from a variety of sources, Guo develops a new modelling approach incorporating the process-oriented biogeochemistry model Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) into site-specific LCA studies to simulate carbon and nitrogen dynamics in the wheat agro-ecosystem. This thesis addresses important LCA data quality issues by using comprehensive sensitivity and uncertainty analyses and has resulted in a large number of publications in internationally renowned journals.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The environmental profiles of novel wheat based foam (WBF) materials were investigated in this thesis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. The LCAs were developed using primary data collected from industrial sources combined with new laboratory experiments supplemented with secondary data from publicly available sources. Laboratory research was conducted to obtain important missing data on WBFs for the LCA modelling, including physico-chemical parameters, biodegradability and energy recovery under anaerobic digestion conditions. Contribution analysis suggested that the emissions evolved from the wheat agro-ecosystem and PVOH production, together with the energy and infrastructure involved in WBF production were the major contributors to the environmental burdens of the WBF life cycle in most impact categories. The atmospheric emissions resulting from WBF degradation at the end-of-life also emerged as another important contributor to environmental impact. Amongst the diverse ‘end-of-life’ scenarios examined, AD and home composting were suggested to be the optimum choices for WBF waste treatment. To address the question ‘is there a general environmental advantage for WBFs over petrochemical polymers’, case studies were applied to compare the performance of WBFs with HDPE/LDPE/EPS in various applications. Further exploration of potential biopolymer foam materials was undertaken by study of two additional foams derived from potato and maize starches. The results suggested that this group of starch-PVOH blended biopolymers offer environmentally superior options to LDPE in thermal packaging applications. However, this is not the case for other applications, where the outcome of comparisons between starch-PVOH biopolymers and HDPE/EPS varied with the specific application examined. A hierarchy of critical parameters for LCA-based decision-making on starch-PVOH biopolymers is suggested as a general outcome of this research. This research discusses two N2O modelling approaches and presents a method to expand the system boundary by integrating the process-oriented model DNDC for field emissions into the LCA. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the environmental profiles of agricultural products are influenced substantially by the system boundary definition. Furthermore, it suggests that the ‘general rule’ in LCA practice by applying an empirical model or a default emission factor (EF) could deliver unreliable LCA findings. This study also evaluated the sensitivity of the LCA results to methodology and data variations and quantified the uncertainties in the LCA outcomes arising from uncertainty in the inventory and data variability. This has led to an increase in confidence in the LCA findings. At the same time it indicates the areas where improvements in data or methods are needed in order for robust conclusions to be drawn and unbiased information to be delivered e.g. the methodological rigidity of characterization models, the IPCC Tier 1 EF uncertainty range. Chapter 1 outlines the overview, research objectives and structure of this thesis and provides a thorough and detailed review of literature considered to be of particular relevance to the aim of this study.
Miao Guo
Chapter 2. Materials and Methods
Abstract
In the current study, an attributional LCA approach was applied. As indicated in the introduction, LCA is a systems analysis approach, assessing the environmental aspects and impacts of product or service systems over their whole life cycle in accordance with the stated goal and scope of the study. Definition of the goal and scope is therefore the basis for all LCAs. In this chapter, the goal and scope for the LCA models presented in this thesis are set out together with discussion of specific aspects of the data development undertaken in order to address the study scope. In the current research, the LCA models were developed using primary inventory collected from industrial sources combined with new data derived from laboratory experiments and computer simulations supplemented with secondary data from publicly available sources. This chapter presents the general materials and methodologies (including modelling and experimental methodologies) adopted throughout the research.
Miao Guo
Chapter 3. LCA of Wheat Agro-Eco-System
Abstract
An approach is presented to include a wider range of factors involved in the nitrogen and carbon cycles in agro-ecosystems than is typical of many LCAs of agriculture-based products. This uses results from the process-oriented Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC, modified version) model. This study evaluate the effects of using site-specific N2O emissions derived from the DNDC model rather than the values derived from the commonly used Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 empirical model on the results of whole life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) profiles for wheat-based biopolymer products. Statistical methods were also used to analyze the quality of the DNDC and IPCC outputs and to characterize the uncertainty in the GHG results. The results confirm that the GHG profiles of the wheat-derived biopolymer products are sensitive to how the agricultural system is modeled and uncertainty analyses indicate that DNDC is preferred over the IPCC Tier 1 approach for site-specific LCAs. The former allows inclusion of a wider range of important site-specific agricultural parameters in the LCA, provides for improved quality in the LCA data and permits better calibration of uncertainty in the LCA inventory. In this study, site-specific primary data were used to develop the LCA inventory and detailed contributional analyses presented in this chapter reveals the major contributors to the environmental profiles of wheat farming system.
Miao Guo
Chapter 4. LCA Case Studies of Starch-Based Foam
Abstract
Research on starch-PVOH composites has been carried out since 1980s, but limited LCAs on this topic are publically available. in the current study, novel LCA inventories for starch-PVOH biopolymers were developed using primary data derived from industrial sources and laboratory research and are presented in a transparent manner in this chapter. the ‘cradle-to-gate’ LCA profiles of starch-PVOH biopolymers have been evaluated in multi case studies to address the basic question ‘is there a general environmental advantage for starch-PVOH biopolymer over petroleum-based foam’ A range of aspects of natural environment, human health and resources were taken into account in LCA model and the major environmental issues occurring at starch-PVOH biopolymer production stage were identified via contributional analyses. Comprehensive sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were also carried out to calibrate the robustness of the LCA findings.
Miao Guo
Chapter 5. End-of-Life Scenarios
Abstract
In the current LCA study on starch-PVOH biopolymer products, product-specific waste streams and their components were modelled in detail and particularly included biological waste treatments. In this way the present work goes beyond many of the previous LCA studies and models which have focused largely on the MSW/BFMSW. Diverse end-of-life scenarios for starch-PVOH biopolymer products were modelled in this chapter, especially anaerobic digestion (AD) scenarios which were built on the data developed from a UK commercial AD plant and on novel laboratory results obtained from lab-scale AD research.
Miao Guo
Chapter 6. LCA of WBF Products Over Whole Life Cycles
Abstract
To address the question ‘is there a general environmental advantage for starch-PVOH biopolymers over petrochemical polymers’, cradle-to-grave LCA case studies were carried out to compare environmental performances of three starch-PVOH biopolymers with their petrochemical counterparts in various applications. The results suggested that this group of starch-PVOH blended biopolymers offer environmentally superior options to LDPE in thermal packaging applications. However, this is not the case for other applications, where the comparisons between biopolymer and HDPE/EPS were constrained by specific parameters. A hierarchy of critical parameters for LCA-based decision-making on starch-PVOH biopolymer is suggested as a general outcome of this research. A range of end-of-life scenarios for starch-PVOH bioplymer waste management were modelled including landfill, anaerobic digestion, home composting and industrial composting. The ranking of biological treatment routes for starch-PVOH biopolymer wastes depended on their chemical compositions and the waste management hierarchy is highly influenced by uncertainties in the parameters and assumptions modelled for the end-of-life scenarios.
Miao Guo
Chapter 7. Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis
Abstract
LCA data quality issues were investigated by using case studies on products from starch-PVOH biopolymers and petrochemical alternatives. These case studies demonstrated that the parameters and assumptions in the database as well as the characterization and normalization methods need to be addressed in sensitivity analysis in order to draw robust LCA conclusions. This study also presents an approach to integrate statistical methods into LCA models for analyzing uncertainty in industrial and computer-simulated datasets. This chapter calibrated probabilities for the LCA outcomes for biopolymer products arising from uncertainty in the inventory and from data variation characteristics - this has enabled assigning confidence to the LCIA outcomes in specific impact categories for the biopolymer vs. petrochemical polymer comparisons undertaken. Uncertainty combined with the sensitivity analysis carried out has led to a transparent increase in confidence in the LCA findings. It is concluded that LCAs lacking explicit interpretation of the degree of uncertainty and sensitivities are of limited value as robust evidence for decision making or comparative assertions.
Miao Guo
Chapter 8. General Discussion and Conclusions
Abstract
The initial task of this research was to investigate the cradle-to-grave environmental profiles of novel WBFs and address the question ‘is there a general environmental advantage for WBFs over petrochemical polymers?’ This topic was addressed by developing an LCA model and case studies based on pilot manufacturing of WBFs that was focussed on addressing a number of central issues in conducting LCAs on bio-based materials. During the course of this research, a number of important issues concerning the application of LCA to bio-based materials and for LCA in general emerged as expected. These are essentially ‘lessons learnt from the journey’. These are presented below in parallel with the overall findings, followed by the recommendations for future work and the conclusions from this study.
Miao Guo
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Light-Weight Eco-composites
verfasst von
Miao Guo
Copyright-Jahr
2012
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-35037-5
Print ISBN
978-3-642-35036-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35037-5

    Marktübersichten

    Die im Laufe eines Jahres in der „adhäsion“ veröffentlichten Marktübersichten helfen Anwendern verschiedenster Branchen, sich einen gezielten Überblick über Lieferantenangebote zu verschaffen.