Life cycle assessment of magnetic and electronic ballast for 36-W fluorescent lamp

Ballast is a device in a fluorescent lamp that supports the production of light. In this study, the environmental impacts of two types of Malaysian ballast, magnetic ballast and electronic ballast, were identified and compared using the life cycle assessment approach through the ISO 14040 (2005) series.

The functional unit is consumption of 36 W ballast for a fluorescent lamp of 36 W during 10 years of working hours. The life cycle impact assessment was determined by the Eco-indicator 99 method. Only material processing, production, and use stages were considered in this study. Component inventory showed steel to be the major component in both the magnetic and electronic ballasts, used as the core steel and housing, respectively.

For raw material and manufacturing phases, electronic ballast registered higher value for each damage category: 2.92 × 10⁻⁵ disability adjusted life years (DALY) for human health, 1.43 potential disappeared fraction of plants (PDF) m² year for ecosystem quality and 17.02 MJ surplus for resource depletion compared to those for magnetic ballast at 4.08 × 10⁻⁶ DALY, 0.83 PDF m² year, and 3.53 MJ surplus, for their respective damage categories. For the use phase, magnetic ballast used more energy (135 kWh) than electronic ballast (45 kWh) and also registered more impact during the use phase with 3.57 × 10⁻⁵ DALY for human health, 3.25 PDF m² year for ecosystem quality, and 219.43 MJ surplus for resource depletion, compared to electronic ballast’s 1.19 × 10⁻⁵ DALY, 1.08 PDF m² year, and 73.14 MJ surplus for their respective damage categories.