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Wiik, Marianne, and Mikaela Sahlin. "Life Cycle Assessment : Life cycle assessment of a high speed centrifugal separator." Thesis, KTH, Industriell ekologi, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-32798.
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The main objective is to perform a life cycle assessment (LCA) on a hot milk high-speed centrifugal separator (HMRPX 918-HGV-74C, product number 881275 01 01. The purpose of a life cycle assessment (LCA) is to provide a picture of a product’s total environmental impact during its lifecycle. The study is carried out according to ISO 14 040, i.e. all methods, data and assumptions are accounted for in order to make an external review possible. An LCA could provide the basis for an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). The LCA clearly shows that the main environmental impact of the separator is caused by CIP and electricity used during operation. The major part of the impact from the CIP chemicals is due to the energy needed for their manufacture. Fossil fuels account for most of the impact for both operation and manufacture of chemicals. Therefore customers should be encouraged to use environmentally friendly electricity and chemicals, such as renewable energy sources and sodium hydroxide made with membrane technology. It is also important to use as little as possible of cleaning agents and make sure that waste is treated properly.www.ima.kth.se
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Raynolds, Marlo. "Advancing life-cycle assessment techniques." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape8/PQDD_0026/NQ46908.pdf.
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Wright, Lucy. "Product life cycle management." Thesis, University of Surrey, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.301674.
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Mueller, Karl G. "Life cycle assessment in engineering design." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/8049.
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Making correct design decisions during the early stages of the engineering design process is increasingly seen to be important, as changes during the later stage can be costly. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used as a method to evaluate the design from 'cradle to grave'. In concept design, decisions are made that have a most significant influence on the life cycle, but at this stage the lack of detail makes LCA very difficult if not impossible. This thesis introduces a method that enables an 'order-of-magnitude' life cycle assessment during the concept stage of the design process. This is achieved by modelling the life cycle inventory as a function of design parameters for complete product families used in engineering design. The hypothesis is that relatively few so-called life cycle parameters determine the largest part of the life cycle inventory. Furthermore, design parameters are related to life cycle parameters, which are mathematically modelled. Design parameters are chosen so that they can be estimated early during the design process. The models of the life cycle parameters are expressed in terms of upper and lower limits, summarising data from many product families. More detailed models describe the relationships of single product families. The method is suitable for software implementation, which will especially aid the handling of sensitivity analysis. Two case studies (sealed lead acid batteries, three-phase asynchronous motors) are used to illustrate how the life cycle parameters are related to the design parameters. An overall outline of how the method is implemented into the overall design process completes the thesis (evaluation of parallel and series configuration hybrid electric vehicle).
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Jiménez-González, Concepción. "Life Cycle Assessment in Pharmaceutical Applications." NCSU, 2002. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-20020207-155355.
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In the present work, life cycle information is developed to provide environmental input into process development and chemical selection within the pharmaceutical industry. The evaluation at various stages of the development process for Sertraline Hydrochloride, an effective chiral antidepressant, was conducted. This evaluation included the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and further Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare several synthetic routes and production processes of this pharmaceutical product. To complete the Sertraline analysis, a methodology to generate gate-to-gate life cycle information of chemical substances was developed based on a transparent methodology of chemical engineering process design (an ab initio approach). In the broader concept of an LCI, the information of each gate-to-gate module can be linked accordingly in a production chain, including the extraction of raw materials, transportation, disposal, reuse, etc. to provide a full cradle-to-gate evaluation. Furthermore, the refinery, energy and treatment sub-modules were developed to assess the environmental burdens related to energy requirements and waste treatment. Finally, the concept of a Á¤lean/Green Technology GuideÃ?was also proposed as an expert system that would provide the scientists with comparative environmental and safety performance information on available technologies for commonly performed unit operations in the pharmaceutical industry. With the expected future application of computer-aid techniques for combinatorial synthesis, an increase of the number of parallel routes to be evaluated in the laboratory scale might be predicted. Life cycle information might also be added to this combinatorial synthesis approach for R&D. This input could be introduced in the earlier stages of process design in order to select cleaner materials or processes using a holistic perspective. This life cycle approach in pharmaceutical synthesis is intended to facilitate the evaluation, comparison, and selection of alternative synthesis routes, by incorporating the overall environmental impact of routes.
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Schueler, Maximilian. "Using Life Cycle Assessment in Agriculture." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/19867.
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Mit Ökobilanzen werden Umwelteigenschaften von Produkten und Dienstleistungen analysiert und zunehmend bei der Bewertung von Milchproduktionssystemen eingesetzt. Um konsistente Berichterstattung und Vergleichbarkeit von produktbezogenen Treibhausgasemissionen im Milchsektor zu gewährleisten hat die International Dairy Federation (IDF) Berechnungsgrundlagen publiziert. Allerdings werden die Effekte von Variabilität betrieblicher Kennzahlen und Unsicherheit von Emissionsfaktoren unzureichend betrachtet. Diese Arbeit hat es zum Ziel diese Lücke zu schließen.
In der ersten Studie wurden verschiedene Definitions- und Berechnungsmöglichkeiten des Referenzflusses und der funktionellen Einheit für die Klimabilanz von Milchproduktion verglichen. Eine hohe Bandbreite an möglichen Ergebnissen – bei gleichen Eingangsdaten – ermöglicht eine große Ergebnisunsicherheit. Die Voraussetzungen für zeitliche Repräsentativität wurden in der zweiten Studie untersucht. Über 6 aufeinanderfolgende Jahre wurde auf einem ökologischen Milchviehbetrieb in Norddeutschland die Klimabilanz mit einem detaillierten Stoffflussmodel analysiert. Dabei zeigte es sich, dass für den untersuchten Betrieb mindestens 4 aufeinanderfolgende Jahre untersucht werden müssen um belastbare Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Die dritte Studie befasst sich mit der Forderung mindestens ein Stufe 2 Verfahren der Methodik des IPCC zu verwenden. Mit Daten von 20 norwegischen Milchviehbetrieben wurde die Unsicherheit der Klimabilanz auf Basis von Tier 1 Berechnungen bei bodenbürtigen Emissionen mit dem FARM Modell ermittelt. Von allen 190 direkten Vergleichen von zwei Betrieben miteinander waren 78 % signifikant unterschiedlich
Aus den drei Studien wird geschlossen, dass die existierenden Regeln zur Erstellung von Klimabilanzen von Milchproduktion teilweise zu unpräzise und teilweise zu streng sind, und damit sowohl Erstellung als auch Interpretation von betrieblichen Klimabilanzen in der Milchproduktion erschwert werden.Life cycle assessment (LCA) analyses the environmental performance of products and services and has become increasingly important also for the environmental assessment of dairy systems. In order to create consistent results for communication, declaration and comparison, the International Dairy Federation (IDF) provides a guideline for the calculation of product-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy sector. However, the effects of farm data variability and emission factor uncertainty on the comparability of GHG assessments on the farming level are seldom considered. This thesis aims to fill this gap. In the first study, different settings in the definition of energy corrected milk (ECM) and the reference flows were compared in a calculation example based on average farming data. A high bandwidth of the carbon footprint result indicated a severe uncertainty when calculation procedures are not well documented. The second case study examined the production data from six consecutive milk years in an organic dairy farm in northern Germany and its effect on the estimation of product-related GHG emissions. It was shown that data from at least four years is needed to provide reliable results for that farm. The third study dealt with the demand of the IDF guidelines to use at least Tier 2 in the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using data from 20 Norwegian dairy farms, the uncertainty of the carbon footprint using Tier 1 of the IPCC guidelines within the FARM model was assessed. From all 190 direct comparisons of two farms in the study, 78 % of the comparisons were significantly different with a relative difference of 8.7 % being enough to establish significance of the difference. From the three studies it was concluded that existing rules may partly not be precise enough to allow for comparison of farms or farming systems, or partly too strict and thereby hindering the execution of carbon footprint studies.
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Solberg-Johansen, Bente. "Environmental life cycle assessment of the nuclear fuel cycle." Thesis, University of Surrey, 1998. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/772/.
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Petrovic, Bojana. "Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis of a single-family house." Licentiate thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Energisystem och byggnadsteknik, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-36901.
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The building industry is responsible for 35% of final energy use and 38% of CO2 emissions at a global level. The European Union aims to reduce CO2 emissions in the building industry by up to 90% by the year 2050. Therefore, it is important to consider the environmental impacts buildings have. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the environmental impacts and costs of a single-family house in Sweden. In the study, the life cycle assessment (LCA) and the life cycle cost (LCC) methods have been used by following the “cradle to grave” life cycle perspective. This study shows a significant reduction of global warming potential (GWP), primary energy (PE) use and costs when the lifespan of the house is shifted from 50 to 100 years. The findings illustrate a total decrease in LCA outcome, of GWP to 27% and PE to 18%. Considering the total LCC outcome, when the discount rate increases from 3% to 5% and then 7%, the total costs decrease significantly (60%, 85% to 95%). The embodied carbon, PE use and costs from the production stage/construction stage are significantly reduced, while the maintenance/replacement stage displays the opposite trend. Operational energy use, water consumption and end-of-life, however, remain largely unchanged. Furthermore, the findings emphasize the importance of using wood-based building materials due to its lower carbon-intensive manufacturing process compared to non-wood choices. The results of the LCA and LCC were systematically studied and are presented visually. Low carbon and cost-effective materials and installations have to be identified in the early stage of a building design so that the appropriate investment choices can be made that will reduce a building’s total environmental and economic impact in the long run. Findings from this thesis provide a greater understanding of the environmental and economic impacts that are relevant for decision-makers when building single-family houses.Byggbranschen svarar för 35% av den slutliga energianvändningen och 38 % av koldioxidutsläppen på global nivå. Europeiska unionen strävar efter att minska koldioxidutsläppen i byggnadsindustrin med upp till 90% fram till 2050. Därför är det viktigt att beakta byggnaders miljöpåverkan. Syftet med denna avhandling var att undersöka miljöpåverkan och kostnader för ett enfamiljshus i Sverige. I studien har livscykelbedömningen (LCA) och livscykelkostnadsmetoderna (LCC) använts genom att tillämpa livscykelperspektivet ”vagga till grav”. Studien visar en stor minskning av global uppvärmningspotential (GWP), användning av primärenergi (PE) och kostnader vid växling från 50 till 100 års husets livslängd. Resultaten visar en årlig minskning med 27% för utsläpp av växthusgaser och med 18% för användningen av primärenergi. Med tanke på det totala LCC-utfallet, när diskonteringsräntan ökar från 3%, 5% till 7%, minskar de totala kostnaderna avsevärt (60%, 85% till 95%). Det noteras att klimatavtrycket, primärenergianvändningen och kostnaderna från produktionssteget/konstruktionssteget minskar avsevärt, medan underhålls- / utbytessteget visar den motsatta trenden när man byter från 50 till 100 års livslängd. Den operativa energianvändningen, vattenförbrukningen och avfallshanteringen är fortfarande nästan samma när man ändrar livslängden. Vidare betonar resultaten vikten av att använda träbaserade byggmaterial på grund av lägre klimatpåverkan från tillverkningsprocessen jämfört med alternativen. LCA- och LCC-resultaten studerades systematiskt och redovisades visuellt. De koldioxidsnåla och kostnadseffektiva materialen och installationerna måste identifieras i ett tidigt skede av en byggnadskonstruktion genom att välja lämpliga investeringsval som kommer att minska de totala miljö och ekonomiska effekterna på lång sikt. Resultaten från denna avhandling ger ökad förståelse för miljömässiga och ekonomiska konsekvenser som är relevanta för beslutsfattare vid byggnation av ett enfamiljshus.
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De, Sanctis Clarissa. "Life Cycle Assessment Method for PVC production." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2018.
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Partendo da un'analisi generale sull'importanza della plastica come materia prima a livello globale con le sue relative implicazioni ambientali e non, ci si è successivamente focalizzati sulla produzione del PVC. Si è applicata la metodologia "Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)" prendendo in considerazione tutti gli step necessari per la sintesi di un kilogrammo di PVC. L'utilizzo del GaBi software ha successivemente permesso di implemetare l'analisi ed ottenere risultati in termini di indici (eventualmente aggregati in indicatori), singoli valori che hanno permesso di valutare l'impatto ambientale dell'intero processo sull'ecosistema e le risorse naturali utilizzate. L'elaborato termina con l'analisi dei Costi e dei Benefici della produzione di un kilogrammo di PVC al fine di caratterizzare l'intero processo di sintesi dal punto di vista economico, se competitivo e benefico per la comunità oppure senza vantaggi economici, ambientali e sociali.
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Flamini, Leonardo. "Life Cycle Assessment nella produzione di biogas." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2019.
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Il biogas che si forma nella pancia di una discarica è un fenomeno noto da sempre, ma solo
da alcuni decenni si è iniziato a pensare ad esso come un processo che può portare ad una
risorsa. A partire dalla direttiva 2009/28/CE il biometano viene inserito nella lista dei
biocombustibili da incentivare, in seguito alla quale seguirà una stagione di grande diffusione
di impianti di piccola taglia su tutto il territorio nazionale, alimentati principalmente a FORSU
e scarti dell’industria agrozootecnica. Dopo qualche anno di stallo il recepimento della
direttiva UE 2015/1513 mette le basi per un nuovo impulso all’apertura di impianti di nuova
costruzione, i quali però devono certificare la propria sostenibilità.
Questo elaborato, svolto presso la IGW srl di Calderara di Reno(BO), intende valutare la
sostenibilità ai sensi della direttiva 2009/28/CE, operando dunque un’analisi del ciclo di vita,
di tre differenti impianti di produzioni di biogas, che utilizzano due differenti tipologie di
alimentazione e differenti soluzioni impiantistiche.
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Spielmann, Michael. "Prospective life cycle assessment for transport systems /." Zürich : ETH, 2005. http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/show?type=diss&nr=16047.
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Kougoulis, Ioannis-Stefan. "Symmetric functional modeling in life cycle assessment." Aachen Shaker, 2008. http://d-nb.info/999723227/34.
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Hou, Qianqian. "Life Cycle Assessment of Cruising Ship Superstructure." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-160456.
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This thesis project was conducted to compare the environmental impacts between two types of material for a superstructure of cruising ship (Norwegian Gem) using life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. With the increasing price of industrial raw materials and finite resources, more and more corporations or manufacturers endeavor in seeking more economical materials and less environmental impacts within the ship building field. In recent years, lightweight composite material has been applied in various industrial fields, for instance, green buildings, aircraft and wind turbine blade. In order to study impacts of steel superstructure and composite material superstructure of the ship, a detail study was conducted which using the comparative LCA method and SimaPro software. Two different superstructures are compared, steel superstructure and sandwich material superstructure. The results showed thatover the life cycle the environmental impacts of sandwich superstructure type are much less than for the steel superstructure. The main contribution of impacts over the life time is operation phase due to fuel consumption. When increasing the waste recycling section for composite structure, the influence on environment has an obvious decrease compared to steel superstructure.
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Ruban, Anna. "Life Cycle Assessment of Plastic Bag Production." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-179846.
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The main focus of this report is to establish a comparative study of traditional and biodegradable vest-plastic bag production through the utilization of a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. The measurements were made for the Ukrainian limited liability company “Polymer”, as a representative manufacturer, in order to calculate the environmental impact of plastic bag manufacturing, and identify the more environmental friendly item. This research is based on a literature review of the special characteristics of life cycle assessment and its methods and methodologies, a field study, which included two semi-structure interviews, and measurements and comparison of the harmfulness of traditional and biodegradable bag production. The software SimaPro 7.3.2 and IMACT 2002+ method were chosen in order to accomplish the research purpose. The results of the study show that traditional vest-bags produced by the researched enterprise are less environmentally friendly. Their production process has a bigger impact on environment and human health than that of the biodegradable bags. Moreover, a list of recommendations for possible improvements was developed based on the results of the research. It was sent to the directors of LLC “Polymer” as a suggestion for creating a “green strategy” of further development.
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Dequidt, Thomas Charles Edouard. "Life Cycle Assessment of a Norwegian Bridge." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for bygg, anlegg og transport, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-19503.
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Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology aims at evaluating the environmental impacts of a product or system from a holistic approach. In this methodology, all life cycle phases of the product are identified and assessed, from the raw material acquisition to the end-of-life phase. This master thesis is dealing with the LCA of a Norwegian bridge. First, a literature review is realized by going through 14 bridge LCA references. Then, a detailed description of bridge LCA methodology is performed. Finally, an LCA study is applied on Tverlandsbrua, a Norwegian bridge project, in order to assess the overall global warming impact of the bridge life cycle.The conclusions of the literature review are very different according to the goals and scopes of the studies. Concrete and timber bridges are often more environmentally performing than steel or composite concrete-steel bridges. Material production is generally the life cycle phase leading to most impacts, followed by the maintenance & repair phase. Improvements in material design and use of recycled materials are important to bring down the overall emissions.The LCA methodology description has been through all elements specified in the ISO standards. The methodology has been adapted to the needs of the case study but the goal and scope definition has been kept wide enough to allow comparisons with future bridge assessments. Input data (energy, material flows, etc.) are as much as possible gathered from the client and subcontractors of the project, but sometimes assumed. Output data (greenhouse gases emissions) are either directly collected from environmental reports or calculated by an LCA software.The overall global warming impact of Tverlandsbrua is 6665 kgCO2-eq per functional unit (FU), all life cycle phases considered. The FU, i.e. the unit to which the emissions are referred, is defined as 1 square meter effective bridge deck area through a lifetime of 100 years. When the operation phase (mainly consisting of traffic-related emissions) is not considered, the emissions are brought down to 1358 kgCO2-eq per FU. Concrete, steel and asphalt life cycles are identified as the main component contributors. Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses, discussions and recommendations for further studies are performed in order to give clues for more environmentally performing solutions.
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Kougoulis, Ioannis-Stefean. "Symmetric functional modeling in life cycle assessment." Aachen Shaker, 2008. http://d-nb.info/98922015X/04.
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Yigit, Cisem. "Life Cycle Assessment In Ferrous Foundry Industry." Master's thesis, METU, 2013. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615559/index.pdf.
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Foundries are most widely facilities all around the world, producing high amounts of castings. In this study, environmental impact of metal foundries was investigated toward a life cycle assessment (LCA) goal. Studies were conducted in two foundry plants in order to collect the inventory data. The difference between the plants regarding their processes was the application of secondary sand reclamation (SSR) in Plant 2. Application of SSR is indicated as a
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Bøe, Lisbeth Jeanette. "Life cycle assessment of novel CCS technologies." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for energi- og prosessteknikk, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-22885.
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CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are the largest sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the better options to mitigate these emissions and thereby limit global warming even while continuing the use of fossil fuels for power generation. As CCS increases the energy consumption of the power plant itself, there will be an increased use of fuel and therefore also increased environmental impacts connected to this. To calculate these impacts it is important to include the entire supply chain and life cycle of the power plant.This thesis involves a tiered hybrid life cycle assessment of natural gas- and coal power plants with chilled ammonia process (CAP) and sorption enhanced water-gas shift (SEWGS) capture technologies. These novel capture technologies are two of the least studied when it comes to environmental assessments. The results from this assessment are compared to two of the more studied capture technologies, post-combustion capture by monoethanolamine (MEA) and oxyfuel combustion capture.Both the CAP capture alternative and the SEWGS alternative have been shown to decrease the global warming potential (GWP) in a natural gas plant by 70%. For the coal-fired power plants, the CAP technology managed a decrease in GWP of 77% while the SEWGS technology showed a decrease of 77.5%. This decrease comes at a cost of other impact categories where for example the freshwater ecotoxicity potential (FETP) has an increase of 87-88% for both the CAP and SEWGS capture technologies in NGCC plants. This impact category has an increase of 25 and 22% for the CAP and SEWGS technologies in the coal-fired power plants.Compared to post-combustion capture by MEA and oxyfuel combustion capture, the results were clear on MEA being the least preferable option in an environmental perspective for both coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Oxyfuel combustion capture, on the other hand, was shown to be the most preferable option.
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Yiu, W. Y., and 姚泳儀. "Life cycle assessment in the construction industry." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2001. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B42576039.
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Chan, Ho-kan, and 陳可芹. "Life cycle assessment of LED road lighting." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2012. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B48542611.
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It is observed that the power consumption of road lighting is increased with the length of trafficable road in Hong Kong. The energy used in road lighting is increasing, which means that the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted from power plant for generating electricity for road lighting is at the same time increasing.
To compare the performance of light emitted diode (LED) road lighting with road lighting of other lamp sources, literature review, life cycle assessment (LCA) and technical assessment are adopted to give an overall comparison. This research focuses more on the environmental impacts of road lighting. LCA is adopted in order to give a comprehensive view on the environmental impact of road lighting. A total of 3 different lamp sources are compared: high pressure sodium (HPS) lamp, induction lamp and light emitted diode (LED) lamp.
From the model result, it is found that due to the low power consumption and long life time, LED and induction lamp road lighting gives generally less environmental impact than HPS road lighting. As induction lamp has a longer life span than LED, the environmental impact of induction lamp road lighting is found slightly less than that of LED road lighting. Taking account the future development in LED technology, leading to longer life time, higher efficacy and lower production cost, LED road lighting is expected to be a replacement for road lighting in Hong Kong for the future.published_or_final_version
Environmental Management
Master
Master of Science in Environmental Management
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Selmes, Derek G. "Towards sustainability : direction for life cycle assessment." Thesis, Heriot-Watt University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10399/1136.
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Dong, Bo M. Eng Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Life-cycle assessment of wastewater treatment plants." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73783.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-58).
This thesis presents a general model for the carbon footprints analysis of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. In previous research, the issue of global warming is often related to traditional industries with high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, such as power plants and transportation. However, the analyses of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have drawn increasing attention, due to the intensive greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from WWTPs. WWTPs have been listed in the 7 th place for both methane (CH 4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) total emissions. In addition, WWTPs indirectly contribute to a huge amount of CO2 emissions. The final results have shown that more than half of the carbon footprints from the La Gavia WWTP are from the indirect emissions of CO2, which is caused by the intensive energy consumption. The direct emissions of CH4 and N2O combined contribute more than 30 percent of GHG emission. The finally section of the thesis compares the environmental impacts of the La Gavia WWTP with case of no WWTP at all. It has been concluded that although the La Gavia WWTP increased the total carbon footprints, it has much better control of eutrophication potential (EP).
by Bo Dong.
M.Eng.
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Sousa, Inês (Maria Inês Silva Sousa) 1972. "Integrated product design and life-cycle assessment." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46141.
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Yiu, W. Y. "Life cycle assessment in the construction industry." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B42576039.
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Weir, Gillian Francis. "Life cycle assessment of multi-glazed windows." Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University, 1998. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2747.
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In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development proposed a reduction in per capita energy consumption of 50%. Increasing demands, and initiatives of this nature, produce a need for more reliable assessment methods, measurement tools and improvement regimes. Since the late 1960's Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become an increasingly important tool for engineers, technologists, scientists, designers, managers and environmentalists alike. LCA enables the effects which products, processes and activities have on local, regional or global environments to be assessed, adopting a holistic, or whole life approach to design methodologies. The design of window systems has a large impact upon LCA results generated. Thermal performance properties influence energy consumption patterns throughout a lifetime of use, while appropriate use of materials, window positioning and size have a knock-on effect on lighting control functions and air conditioning demands. In developing countries, residential sectors account for between 20% and 30% of the total energy used (30% in the UK). Windows in dwellings alone account for 6% of the total UK energy consumption. This thesis addresses an ongoing need to focus on sustainable development, using LCA as an assessment tool to develop a greater understanding of the window life cycle, and to highlight improvements which are necessary to lessen its environmental impact and make the processes involved more benign. To do this successfully requires that the demands of modern day living, and the comfort conditions expected, be incorporated into design criteria, whilst ensuring that the needs of future generations are not compromised by today's activities. Along with rising demands to improve efficiency and decrease energy consumption in buildings, comes an expectation for continual improvement in building interiors. To this end, both the aural and visual haracteristics of window installations become paramount, in addition to the well researched thermal performance criteria. Much research has focused on investigating the social and physiological benefits associated with improved interior environments. The correlation between worker satisfaction and performance has been well proven. If complete physical well-being is satisfied then an individual's mental well-being is less likely to be affected by the additional stressors of environmental dissatisfaction. An optimisation model has been developed, linking the thermal, aural and visual performance of varying window designs, such that an "advanced" window system is created. Two outputs are generated from the model, which may be used to evaluate the "optimum" window design in terms of energy consumption and global environmental impact. Optimisation of energy consumption incorporates embodied energy, thermal performance and electric lighting demand, over the life cycle of a window. Global environmental impact optimisation is similar, but evaluation is based on energy generation, and greenhouse gas production. Finally, a flowchart for optimisation guides the user towards a glazing solution which offers sufficient noise attenuation, whilst minimising thermal losses and electric lighting demand. Each output provides a guide for design, leaving room for judgement, and is not intended to be followed definitively. Recommendations for improvements to manufacture systems and production of multiglazed windows are offered, based on sustainable development criteria. Future research needs, which are necessary to minimise the total environmental impact resulting from multi-glazed window production, are also discussed.
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Benkherouf, M. (Moaadh). "Life cycle assessment of arsenic removal methods." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2018. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201812043210.
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The presence of arsenic in drinking water has been a major concern for years, due to its concentration being above the maximum allowable limit of 10 μg/l. Ingestion of arsenic-contaminated water causes different types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, skin lesion and more. Many techniques have been developed and used to reduce arsenic levels to the maximum allowable limit. The conventional methods to do so are adsorption, membrane filtration, coagulation-flocculation, oxidation, and ion exchange. The most common adsorption material is activated carbon produced from hard coal, but there is a shift towards using agro-waste materials in order to produce a more environmentally-friendly adsorbent with high rejection levels. Such materials include cocoa pod husk, ice cream beans, and red mombin seeds, where cocoa pod husk AC was able to remove 80% of arsenate, and red mombin seeds AC removed arsenate almost completely. Nanofiltration membranes were reportedly effective for arsenic removal, reaching a removal percentage of 90%. In this work, a life cycle assessment analysis using SimaPro was conducted for arsenic removal using red mombin seeds activated carbon and spiral wound nanofiltration membranes, as they are able to reach high removal efficiencies. The methods were then compared based on their impacts on the different environmental and damage categories to determine which is the better option. The results showed that nanofiltration had the lowest environmental impacts over the different impact categories by a huge differenceJuomaveden sisältämä arseeni on ollut merkittävä ongelma jo pitkään, sillä arseenipitoisuus ylittää usein sille asetun raja-arvon 10 μg/l. Arseenipitoisen juomaveden käyttö aiheuttaa muun muassa syöpä- ja verenkiertoelimistön sairauksia sekä iho-ongelmia. Juomaveden arseenipitoisuuden vähentämiseksi on kehitetty useita menetelmiä, joista tavallisimpia ovat adsorptio, kalvoerotus, koagulaatio ja flokkaus, hapetus ja ioninvaihto. Yleisin adsorptiomateriaali on aktiivihiili, joka on valmistettu kivihiilestä, mutta nykyisin maatalousjätteestä valmistetut adsorbentit ovat kiinnostuksen kohteena, sillä ne ovat ympäristöystävällisempiä ja niiden avulla voidaan saavuttaa korkea haitta-aineiden poistoprosentti. Tällaisia materiaaleja ovat muun muassa kaakaopavun kuoret ja punamombinin siemenet. Tutkimuksissa on saavutettu kaakaopavun kuorista valmistetun adsorbentin avulla 80 %:n poistuma arseenille ja punamombinin siemenet ovat poistaneet vedestä arseenin lähes kokonaan. Nanosuodatuksessa kalvot ovat tutkimusten mukaan poistaneet arseenista 90 %. Tässä tutkimuksessa suoritettiin SimaPro-ohjelmiston avulla elinkaariarviointi kahdelle vedenkäsittelymenetelmälle: adsorptiolle, jossa käytettiin punamombinin siemenistä valmistettua adsorbenttia, sekä nanosuodatukselle, jossa käytettiin spiraalikalvoja. Menetelmiä verrattiin niiden ympäristövaikutusten perusteella parhaan vaihtoehdon löytämiseksi. Tulosten perusteella nanosuodatuksen ympäristövaikutukset kaikissa vaikutusluokissa olivat merkittävästi alhaisemmat
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Ringström, Anna. "Life Cycle Assessment of a Road Ferry." Thesis, KTH, Hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-253831.
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On a national level, the Swedish Transport Administration (STA) constitute the responsibleauthority for national long-term infrastructure planning in Sweden and therefore has animportant role for limit the environmental load from domestic transport. STA Road Ferries isresponsible actor within STA, for national infrastructure planning connected to public marinetransport and has formulated the goal of net zero GHG emissions by year 2045 for the ferryfleet. Today, yearly operation causes around 38,400 tons CO2-equivalents. Emissions fromconstruction, maintenance and deconstruction of road ferries are yet unknown. In order to reachclimate neutrality, identification of emissions from a life cycle perspective is needed. This study analyses environmental performance of a standard road ferry from an LCAperspective to be used as a baseline in future work towards climate neutrality. The LCA wasconducted in SimaPro 8.4.0 and evaluated thorough EPD (2013) methodology according to theEN 15804 standardisation. The report gives initial baseline values for the road ferry Neptunus and identifies daily operationas major hotspot in terms of total environmental impact from analysed impact categories, butalso construction phase is of importance to consider. The study further concludes that based onlong term goal and vision as STA Road Ferries has formulated them to today, a combination ofchange in construction in terms of material choices and design, together with changed fuelalternative is considered necessary in order to reach Vision 45. Future studies are recommended on this subject to reach the long term goal and vision. Forexample, studies that complement the developed model with more project specific process dataand include more components, and comparative LCA’s between different fuel alternatives.Trafikverket är den aktör och myndighet som ansvarar för den långsiktiga, nationellainfrastrukturplaneringen i Sverige och som därför har en viktig roll i begränsandet avmiljöpåverkan från landets transportsektor. Färjerederiet är ansvarig aktör inom Trafikverketför nationell infrastrukturplanering och drift kopplat till den statliga inrikessjöfarten i form avfärjedrift. Färjerederiet har idag formulerat det långsiktiga målet att nå nollnetto utsläpp förfärjeflottan till år 2045. Idag orsakar färjedriften 38,400 ton CO2 ekvivalenter årligen vilket dåenbart är utsläpp kopplat till driften. Emissioner från konstruktion, underhåll ochdekonstruktion är dock fortfarande okänt. För att nå total klimatneutralitet behövs såledesidentifiering av emissioner ur ett livscykelperspektiv. Den här studien analyserar miljöprestandan av en standardfärja från Färjerederiets färjeflotta urett livscykelperspektiv med syfte att använda detta som utgångsläge i framtida arbete motklimatneutralitet. Livscykelanalysen genomfördes i SimaPro 8.4.0 och metoden EPD (2013)användes för utvärdering av potentiell miljöbelastning enligt EN 15804 standardiseringen. Resultaten från denna rapport är en utgångspunkt för vidare specialisering, och är baserat pådata från vägfärjan Neptunus. Studien identifierade den dagliga driften som en betydandehotspot för den totala miljöpåverkan utifrån de analyserade påverkanskategorierna, men ävenatt konstruktionen är en viktig del av livscykel att ta hänsyn till. Studien visar vidare att ettkombination av en förändrad konstruktion samt val av bränsle är nödvändigt för att nå delångsiktigt uppsatta målen som finns inom Färjerederiet i form av Vision 45. Framtida studier inom detta område är rekommenderat för att nå de långsiktigt uppsatta målen.Till exempel kan vidare studier göras för att komplettera den upprättade modellen med merprojektspecifik processdata och inkludera fler komponenter, samt utföra jämförandelivscykelanalyser mellan olika bränslealternativ.
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Rodseth, Clare Josephine. "End-of-life in South African product life cycle assessment." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29363.
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Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool specifically developed for quantifying and assessing the environmental burden of a product across its entire life cycle, thus providing powerful support for sustainable product design. There exists a geographical imbalance in the adoption and distribution of LCA studies, with a notably poor penetration into developing countries, resulting from a lack of technical expertise, reliable data, and an inability to engage with the key issues of developing countries. These challenges are particularly prevalent in waste management. The limitations in current LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life, coupled to the disparity in waste management practices between developed and developing countries means that LCA is currently unable to accurately model product end-of-life in South Africa. This means that, for imported products designed on the basis of LCA, the upstream impacts may be accurate, while the end-of-life is not. Therefore, to improve the use of LCA as a tool to support sustainable product design, there is a need to develop life cycle datasets and methods that accurately reflect the realities of waste management in developing countries. The objectives of this dissertation are to (i) identify the current shortcomings of existing LCA datasets in representing the end-of-life stage of general waste in a South African context, and (ii) propose modifications to existing datasets to better reflect the realities of waste management in a South African context and extract lessons from this for use elsewhere. To meet these objectives, research was undertaken in three main stages, with the outcome of each stage used to inform the development of each subsequent stage. The first stage aimed to establish the status quo with regards to general waste management in South Africa. This investigation was informed through a desktop review of government and other publicly available reports, supplemented by field work and stakeholder engagements. These results formed the basis for the second stage: a review of LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life in the South African context. The review of datasets was limited to those contained within SimaPro v8.3 and was undertaken with the aim of understanding the extent to which current datasets are capable of representing South African waste management practices. Finally, three cases of existing LCA datasets were explored. This included testing modifications that could be made in an attempt to improve their applicability to the South African reality. In South Africa, a major limitation in developing a quantified mapping of waste flows lies in the paucity of reliable waste data and the exclusion of the contribution of the informal sector in existing waste data repositories. It was estimated that South Africa generates approximately 12.7 million tonnes of domestic waste per annum, of which an estimated 29% is not collected or treated via formal management options. For both formal and informal general waste, disposal to land (landfill and dumping) represents the most utilised waste management option. Landfill conditions in South Africa range from well-managed sanitary landfills to open dumps. Considering only licensed landfill facilities, it is estimated that large and medium landfill sites accept the majority of South Africa’s general waste (54% and 31% respectively), while the balance is managed in small (12%) and communal (3%) sites. Considering the quantity of informal domestic waste enables a crude estimation of household waste distribution between different landfill classes. In this instance, while the majority of waste (40%) is still managed in large formal landfill sites, an appreciable quantity (26%) is managed in private dumps. Within SimaPro v8.3 landfill disposal is best represented by the sanitary landfill datasets contained within the ecoinvent v3.3 database. SimaPro preserves the modular construction of the ecoinvent dataset, meaning that various generic modifications to these datasets can be made, such as the elimination or addition of burdens, redefinition of the value of a burden, or substitution of a linked dataset. Practically, such modifications are limited to process-specific burdens. However, wastespecific burdens are of greater significance in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) result of a landfill process. Waste-specific emissions are generated using the underlying ecoinvent landfill emission model. The current model structure allows for the parametrisation of waste composition in addition to landfill gas (LFG) capture and utilisation efficiencies. However, besides the incorporation of a methane correction factor to account for the effect that various site conditions have on the waste degradation environment, the extent to which the existing model can be adapted to represent alternative landfill conditions is limited. This is particularly true in the case of leachate generation and release. Although adaptation that incorporates the effect of climatic conditions on waste degradability and emission release is possible, this requires a high level of country-specific data and modelling expertise. Thus, the practicality of such a modification within the skills set of most LCA practitioners is questionable. Further limitations in the existing modelling framework include its inability to quantify the potential impacts of practices characteristic of unmanaged sites such as open-burning, waste scavenging, and the presence of vermin and other animal vectors for disease. Analysis of the LCIA results for different landfill scenarios showed that regardless of either the deposited material or the specific landfill conditions modelled, the time frame considered had the most pronounced effect on the normalised potential impacts. Regardless of landfill conditions, when long-term leachate emissions are considered, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impacts dominate the overall potential impacts of the site. This result implies that if landfill disposal is modelled over the long-term, the potential impacts of the process has less to do with site-specific conditions than it does to do with the intrinsic properties of the material itself. Given the ensuing extent of degradation that occurs over the time frame considered, the practise of very long-term modelling can equalise landfills that differ strongly in the short-term. In terms of product design on the basis of LCA, the choice of material can be more strongly influenced by the time frame considered than the specific landfill scenario. From a short-term perspective, for fast degrading materials the impacts incurred from leachate emissions and their subsequent treatment are of lesser importance than those arising from LFG. From a long-term perspective by contrast, leachate emissions have a significant effect on the LCIA result. Investigation into the effect of reduced precipitation on the LCIA result showed that the exclusion of leachate emissions lowers the potential impacts of a number of impact categories, with the most substantial quantified reduction observed in the freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impact categories. This result implies that for dry climates, the long-term impacts of landfilling could be significantly lower than when compared to landfill under temperate conditions, with the potential impacts of the waste remaining locked-up in the landfill. Given quantified findings on South Africa’s dependence on both formal and informal disposal, and the variation in landfill conditions across the country, it can be concluded that LCA results for the impacts of products originating from global supply chains, but consumed and disposed of in South Africa, will be inaccurate for the end-of-life stage if modifications to end-of-life modelling are not made. The findings from this dissertation provide the basis for i) a crude estimate of ‘market shares’ of different disposal practises and ii) guidelines for parameterisation of material specific emission factors, in particular for shorter term emissions, focused on LFG and leachate emissions.
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Evdokimova, Tatiana. "Life cycle assessment in construction field: A life cycle cost analysis of reinforcement concrete bridge." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2014. http://amslaurea.unibo.it/7371/.
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The present work is included in the context of the assessment of sustainability in the construction field and is aimed at estimating and analyzing life cycle cost of the existing reinforced concrete bridge “Viadotto delle Capre” during its entire life. This was accomplished by a comprehensive data collection and results evaluation. In detail, the economic analysis of the project is performed.
The work has investigated possible design alternatives for maintenance/rehabilitation and end-of-life operations, when structural, functional, economic and also environmental requirements have to be fulfilled. In detail, the economic impact of different design options for the given reinforced concrete bridge have been assessed, whereupon the most economically, structurally and environmentally efficient scenario was chosen. The Integrated Life-Cycle Analysis procedure and Environmental Impact Assessment were also discussed in this work.
The scope of this thesis is to illustrate that Life Cycle Cost analysis as part of Life Cycle Assessment approach could be effectively used to drive the design and management strategy of new and existing structures. The final objective of this contribution is to show how an economic analysis can influence decision-making in the definition of the most sustainable design alternatives. The designers can monitor the economic impact of different design strategies in order to identify the most appropriate option.
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Rajagopalan, Neethi. "Environmental life-cycle assessment of highway construction projects." Thesis, [College Station, Tex. : Texas A&M University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1465.
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Hartmann, Joachim Kilian. "Life-cycle-assessment of industrial scale biogas plants." Doctoral thesis, [S.l.] : [s.n.], 2006. http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/diss/2006/hartmann.
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Baboulet, Olivier. "Path Exchange Method for Hybrid Life-Cycle Assessment." Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-9930.
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To keep process-specificity while extending system boundaries hybrid techniques were developed allowing the micro structure of the important parts of a system to be revealed at the same time the entire economic system in which the system is embedded to be covered. Despite the substantial improvements bestowed by hybrid techniques some downsides still hold. Tiered hybrid LCA first does not model feedbacks whereas the relationship between the process-based system and the input-output based system is interactive and second it may suffer from double counting incidents as a process may be instigated in both the IO and LCI data. Integrated hybrid LCA overcomes those aforementioned pitfalls but only at a price of high labor and data intensity. This work aims to elaborate a new hybridisation method that avoids previously mentioned drawbacks. This technique is designed to not operate anymore at the matrix level as is the case for current hybridisation techniques but at the structural path level, per se the finest level of detail possible for the disaggregation of the Leontief inverse, and as such an ad hoc basis to carry out an hybrid analysis. It is argued that the method presented here constitutes a culmination amongst hybridization techniques. Its operability and capabilities are demonstrated before an interpretation from an input-output vantage point is carried out on a case-study not to be found in the literature, a comparison across the faculties of a university.
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Strand, Kjersti Hestad, and Kaja Jonsvik Aarskog. "Life cycle assessment of Fuel Cells onboard ships." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for marin teknikk, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-11664.
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This report is a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of a fuel cell and a gas engine. It includes emission release over a lifetime, and recommendations to which system to install in operating vessels today. IMO and MARPOL are the main regulators of emission at sea. An increased focus on the marine environment has provided new regulations to limit the impact from ships. Emission to sea has lately been given much attention; dangerous substances have been trapped in local food chains and disturbed the eco-systems. It is assumed that regulations today are to be followed up by stricter limits in the future. Both the fuel cell and the gas engine are solutions which reduce emission to air. The results of the study show a large impact from fuel cell materials. This is mainly harmful to the various ecosystems, and the marine ecosystem is the largest impact category. The fuel cell is a more efficient solution with lower fuel consumption. Because of the electrolyte reaction, there is no combustion process. This gives low CO2 and NOx emissions and approximately zero SOx and PM emissions. This result in a 30% global warming potential reduction compared to the gas engine. Evaluating the results we found the gas engine to be the best solution at the moment. This is based on an overall evaluation of the environmental impact. In addition to this, the capital cost is low. Fuel cell technology is not developed enough to meet today’s standards. To be able to install a fuel cell delivering energy supply to a whole ship, the volume per kW output has to decrease and the lifetime has to be increased. Increased lifetime does not only reduce the environmental impact, it reduces the capital cost as well. The fuel cell has better operational qualities, especially when it comes to global warming impact. In the future the use of fuel cells can be an important tool to reduce the CO2 emission and other emissions to air.
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Dahlsten, Hilda. "Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity from Wave Power." Thesis, Institutionen för energi och teknik, SLU, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-162582.
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The use of ocean wave energy for electricity production has considerable potential, though it has proven to be difficult. A technology utilizing the heaving (up-and-down) motions of the waves was conceived at Uppsala University in the early 2000´s, and is being further developed for commercial use by Seabased Industry AB. The purpose of this master´s degree project was to increase the knowledge of the environmental performance of Seabased´s wave energy conversion concept and identifying possible areas of improvement. This was done by conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a hypothetical prototype wave power plant. All flows of materials, energy, emissions and waste were calculated for all stages of a wave power plant´s life cycle. The potential environmental impact of these flows was then assessed, using the following impact categories: • Emission of greenhouse gases • Emission of ozone depleting gases • Emission of acidifying gases • Emission of gases that contribute to the forming of ground-level ozone • Emission of substances to water contributing to oxygen depletion (eutrophication) • Energy use (renewable and non-renewable) • Water use The methodology used was that prescribed by the ISO standard for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and further defined by the International EPD Programme.The potential environmental impact was calculated per kWh of wave power electricity delivered to the grid. The main result of the study is that the potential environmental impact of a wave power plant mainly stems from the manufacturing phase. In particular, the production of steel parts makes a large contribution to the overall results. Future wave power plant designs are expected to be considerably more material efficient, meaning that there are large possibilities to improve the environmental performance of this technology.
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Wan, Qiansu. "Life Cycle Assessment of Paper Based Printed Circuits." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Skolan för informations- och kommunikationsteknik (ICT), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-219405.
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Printed circuit boards have been massively manufactured and wildly used in all kinds of electronic devices during people’s daily life for more than thirty years since the last century. As a highly integrated device mainly consists of silicon base, an etched copper layer and other soldered components, massive production of printed circuit boards are considered to be environmentally unfriendly due to the wet chemical manufacturing mode and lack of recycling ability. On the other hand, the newly invented ink jet printing technology enables cost-effective manufacturing of flexible, thin and disposable electrical devices, which avoid acid etching process and lead to less toxic emissions into the environment. It is important to consider life cycle analysis for quantitative environmental impact evaluation and comparison of both printed circuit boards and printed electronics to enhance the sustainability of a new technology with product design and development. This thesis first reviews the current approaches to conventional and modern printing methods, as well as the state-of-the-art analysis of sustainability and environmental assessment methodologies. In the second part, a typical ink jet printed electronic device is introduced (an active flexible cable for wearable electrocardiogram monitoring). This active cable is designed for the interconnection between bio electrodes and central medical devices for bio signal transmission. As the active cable consists of five different metal transmission traces which are formed by printing conductive ink onto paper substrates, different shielding methods are investigated to ensure high quality bio signal transmission. Specifically, the results prove that passive shielding methods can significantly decrease the cross talk between different transmission traces, enabling the transmitting of bio signals for wearable ECG monitoring. This research also explores environmental issues related to printed electronics. For the full life cycle of printed electronics, we focused not only on quantitative environmental emissions to air, fresh water, sea and industrial soil, but also on resource consumption and impacts analysis. Finally, comparative environmental performance evaluation of traditional cables and ink jet printed active cables are made to examine the environmental impact and sustainability of both technologies, and the results show the strengths and weaknesses of each technology by analysis and assessment.QC 20171205
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Tudor, Kerry. "Life cycle assessment of materials and automotive structures." Thesis, Swansea University, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.587511.
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Ou, Chih-Sheng. "Sustainable infrastructure materials: A life cycle assessment approach." Connect to online resource, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3273699.
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Solivan, Shan. "Life Cycle Assessment on fiber cable construction methods." Thesis, KTH, Industriell ekologi, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-170735.
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The demand for effective and high-speed telecommunication is growing fast in line with developments in modern society. Old telecommunication infrastructure, based on copper cable networks, cannot supply this increasing demand. Fiber optic network has been developed as a proper solution due to its vastly higher capacity for information transmission than that of copper based networks. As a result for need of faster and more economical construction methods, new fiber construction methods have been developed as well. Some conventional fiber network construction methods (E.g. Conventional Excavation, Chain Excavator, and Ploughing) have previously been studied using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) but no study on new methods (E.g. Micro Trenching, Narrow Trenching) with life cycle perspective has been performed yet. Construction of fiber cable networks requires high energy and material use. Building and construction are energy and material demanding processes, which have obvious effect on the environment, therefore conducting an LCA study on newer construction methods is necessary to be able to identify hotspots and to provide basis for choice of the most environmentally friendly construction method when developing fiber network. The three main phases of each construction method (excavation, laying, and recovery) and the related processes were included in the assessment of the present study. Due to different ground conditions and different applications of Swedish legislation regarding the reuse of the excavated mass, two different scenarios were modeled; with and without reuse of excavated mass in recovery phase as backfilling mass. The results of the LCA study showed that the recovery phase generally stands for the largest environmental impacts in all impact categories for all construction methods. The magnitude and the reason for this impact are different for construction methods applied on asphalt and on green space. In methods applied on asphalt without reuse of the excavated mass, the reason is impacts from asphalt production and transportation of excavated masses to treatment/recycling plant and of new filling material. In case of the excavated mass reuse, the difference between impact from recovery and other phases is much smaller, but still recovery has larger impact due to involved asphalt paving stages. For construction methods applied on green space recovery phase has largest impact as well, but the difference between impact from this phase and other phases is not as significant as in methods applied on asphalt. The main reason for large impact in recovery phase in two methods (Conventional Excavation in Green space and Chain Excavator) applied on green space is transportations of excavated mass to recycling and new filling material. However, specifically in case of Chain Excavator excavation phase had a large impact as well due to high fuel required for operating the machine. The third method in this group i.e. Ploughing is a simple method where no transportation of excavated mass and new filling mass are included. A separate analysis on two methods with least environmental impacts between methods applied on asphalt was made focusing on only machinery, where material (Asphalt, gravel, and sand) and transportations were excluded in the model. The results showed that even in this situation recovery phase stands for biggest impacts in most of categories, but excavation phase has also a considerable contribution to the total impacts. In this regard, improvements in machinery use in both excavation and recovery phase by streamlining included processes can be done in order to minimize the total environmental impacts in each construction method. Waste management of asphalt was excluded from the main system studied due to complexity of the issues and the lack of data. However, sensitivity analysis was done by including a waste management scenario for asphalt recycling using reclaimed asphalt pavement for mixing with virgin asphalt. The results showed the importance of impacts from asphalt production. After expansion of the model and calculating the avoided burden of asphalt, a saving (Avoided environmental load when recycling instead of producing the same amount of virgin asphalt) for Conventional Excavation in Asphalt was observed, but due to high uncertainty regarding data in this part no more detailed conclusions can be drawn in this case. However, no saving for Micro Trenching and Narrow Trenching was observed. The reason was that negative impact from transportations was larger than positive impact from recycling through saving in less production of virgin asphalt. Based on the results of the study it can be concluded that for the construction methods to be as environmentally friendly as possible it is important to avoid asphalt surfaces for fiber cable network construction if possible. Between the construction methods applied on green space the method with the least potential environmental impact is ploughing, in which the total generated amount of CO2 eq for construction per functional unit is 10.2 kg. If it were not possible to avoid asphalt, the construction methods with smallest excavated mass e.g. Micro Trenching and Narrow Trenching, in which the total amount of CO2 eq is respectively 152 kg and 239 kg for construction per functional unit, would be the most environmental option from a life cycle perspective. Innovations in asphalt production, such as using biofuel and renewable energy sources for heating and mixing processes in asphalt production, may decrease the environmental impact of asphalt and there with the impact of the construction methods applied on asphalt. Other processes with the significant environmental impact are transportations and asphalt paving for the construction methods applied on asphalt, and excavation and transportations for the construction methods applied on green space.
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Dong, Yahong, and 董雅紅. "Life cycle sustainability assessment modeling of building construction." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/206665.
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Building industry is one of the most influential economic sectors, which accounts for 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) globally and 40% of the world energy consumption. To achieve the goal of sustainable development, it is necessary to understand the sustainability performance of building construction in the environmental, the economic and the social aspects. This study quantitatively evaluates impacts of building construction in the three aspects by using the recently developed life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodology, in which environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), environmental life cycle costing (ELCC), and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) are integrated. The scope of this research covers ‘cradle-to-site’ life cycle stages, from raw material extraction to on-site construction.
Three life-cycle models are developed, namely the Environmental Model of Construction (EMoC), the Cost Model of Construction (CMoC), and the Social-impact Model of Construction (SMoC). EMoC is a comprehensive ELCA model that evaluates environmental impacts of building construction by considering eighteen impact categories. CMoC is an ELCC model that provides analyses on construction costs and externalities. SMoC is an innovative S-LCA model being able to quantify social impacts of building construction in thirteen social impact categories. The three models are then integrated into a newly proposed LCSA framework.
In order to select an appropriate LCIA method for EMoC, the differences among existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods are investigated. It is found that LCIA methods are consistent in global impact categories, while inconsistent in regional impact categories. ‘ReCiPe’ is selected as the LCIA method to be used in EMoC. Midpoint and endpoint approaches of ‘ReCiPe’ can lead to different interpretations. Endpoint approach emphasizes on certain impact categories and can only be used when midpoint results are provided.
A life cycle inventory is established for ready mixed concrete and precast concrete based on site-specific data from concrete batching plant and precast yard. EMoC is employed to compare environmental performance of precast and cast-in-situ construction methods. It is found that adoption of precast concrete can significantly improve environmental performance of building construction. SMoC suggests that adoption of precast concrete can have both negative and positive impacts on local employment.
A case study is conducted to test the model performance. It demonstrates that environmental impacts of ‘cradle-to-site’ construction activities are mostly attributed to the material stage. The external cost due to carbon emission is about 2% of the total construction cost. Environmental-friendly on-site construction practices can significantly improve social performance of building construction.
The major findings of this study are verified through interviews with the local experts in Hong Kong. These validation interviews confirm that the proposed LCSA framework and the developed models contribute to the building industry in Hong Kong. In particular, this study can be used as a supplementary to the building assessment scheme, HK BEAM Plus. Results from this study can improve the understanding of building sustainability.published_or_final_version
Civil Engineering
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy
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Hauan, Ingrid Bjerke. "Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Transmission and Distribution." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for energi- og prosessteknikk, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-26553.
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As the integration of renewable electricity production progresses and the energy consumption pattern evolves, the transportation of energy is essential for securing sufficient supply while meeting political targets. Power grid renewal and expansion is likely to increase in the future, therefore an understanding of the environmental implications from transmission and distribution (T&D) of electricity is necessary.This master thesis presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the Norwegian power grid, with case-specific data from the Nord-Trøndelag grid, owned and operated by NTE Nett. The aim is to determine the environmental impacts associated with the T&D of electricity, and the functional unit is the delivery of 1 MWh of electrical energy, assuming 2011 conditions. Arda software is used for the impact calculations, applying the ReCiPe midpoint hierarchist method and processes from the Ecoinvent database.The Norwegian power grid operates with three different voltage levels, namely the distribution grid, the regional grid and the main grid. Each of these grid levels are modelled individually and compared to each other, and three different scenarios for electricity production are run for each model.When modelling the T&D grid with a Norwegian electricity production, the distribution grid impacts dominate in most of the 18 Ecoinvent midpoint categories. In the case of climate change, the amount from the three grid levels combined is 13.0 kg CO2-equivalents per MWh of delivered energy. Of these, 9.2 kg stem from the distribution grid, 2.9 kg from the regional grid and 0.9 kg from the main grid. With the Nordic and European production mixes, climate change impacts increase drastically in all grid levels.Attention was also paid to the insulating gas found in the grid components. SF6 is a greenhouse gas with global warming potential 23,900 times higher than that of CO2, and it is utilised in the power grid due to its unique physical properties. In this thesis, leakages of SF6 were found to contribute surprisingly little to the climate change impacts, but it was deemed likely that the model contains an underestimation for this aspect of grid operation.Comparing the impacts from electricity transmission to the power production showed that in the energy system as a whole, the significance of T&D is relatively small. However, the less fossil fuel based the electricity production is, the more significant are the infrastructure impacts. Therefore, in case of a future transition towards a more renewable electricity production, the environmental strains of the physical grid will become more important.Even if power grids in themselves strain the environment, this infrastructure makes the exchange of electricity possible. The advantages of a reliable power grid may outweigh the detriment to the environment, as the infrastructure plays a crucial role in phasing in more renewable energy.
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Campos, Ana Teresa Villarreal, and Ruchira Goyal. "Life cycle assessment of cotton yarns for IKEA." Thesis, KTH, Hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-302403.
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Cotton is one of the leading fibers in the textile industry due to its superior mechanical qualities. It accounts for high environmental impacts, especially water consumption and scarcity. Since cotton is a significant raw material for IKEA, it had set a target to source from only sustainable sources such as from the Better Cotton Initiative, and recycled cotton. At the same time, IKEA also has a commitment to transition to a circular business, which includes recycling. This comparative and accounting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analyzes virgin (two types - conventional cotton and Better Cotton) yarns, and mixed (virgin plus recycled) cotton yarns from some of the top supplier countries of the company, on a cradle-to-gate perspective. Water quantity and quality impacts are analyzed together with climate change. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) shows that there is a proportional reduction in impacts of the mixed yarns as recycled cotton percentage is increased, since the impacts of recycled yarns are much lower than virgin yarns. In virgin conventional yarns, the main stages that contributed the most to the impacts were cotton cultivation and spinning. Irrigation used in cotton cultivation accounted for the most impacts in water availability. For water quality, the impacts were mostly coming from electricity use and direct field emissions from cotton cultivation. In addition, this study demonstrated that there were high differences between the impacts in the countries studied. The results also suggested that there were water savings by using Better Cotton compared to conventional cotton yarns.Bomull är en av de vanligaste fibrerna i textilindustrin på grund av dess överlägsna mekaniska egenskaper. Den orsakar dock hög miljöpåverkan, särskilt vattenförbrukning och -brist. Eftersom bomull är ett viktigt råmaterial för IKEA, har de satt ett mål att endast använda hållbara källor, som från Better Cotton Initiative, och återvunnen bomull. Samtidigt har IKEA också åtagit sig att övergå till en cirkulär affärsmodell som inkluderar återvinning. Denna jämförande studie beaktar livscykelanalys (LCA) och analyserar jungfruligt garn (två typer - konventionell bomull och Better Cotton) och blandat bomullsgarn (jungfru plus återvunna) från några av företagets främsta leverantörsländer ur ett vagga-till-port-perspektiv. Vattenmängder och kvalitetseffekter analyseras tillsammans med klimatförändringar. Livscykelbedömningen (LCIA) visar att det finns en proportionell minskning av effekterna av de blandade garnerna när andelen återvunnen bomull ökar, eftersom effekterna av återvunnet garn är mycket lägre än jungfruliga garner. I konventionellt jungfruligt garn var bomullsodling och spinning de främsta stegen som bidrog mest till effekterna. Bevattning som används vid bomullsodling svarade för de största effekterna på tillgången till vatten. För vattenkvaliteten kom effekterna huvudsakligen från elanvändning och direkta utsläpp från bomullsodling. Dessutom visade denna studie att det fanns stora effektskillnader mellan de studerade länderna. Resultaten antydde också att det fanns vattenbesparingar genom att använda Better Cotton jämfört med konventionella bomullsgarn.
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Rosso, Simone. "Implementation of safety indicators in Life Cycle Assessment." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2021.
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This thesis' main topic is about the implementation of safety indicators in the field of Life Cycle Assessment. The thesis bases itself on the issue of safety and quality of work environment which is one of the most relevant topics in the world of Industrial Ecology. It is first focused on a bibliographic research of the existing methods, and then on the synthesis and the implementation of a new set of indicators, based on a deep analysis of the European database of fatal and non-fatal accidents. The most important part of the thesis is the in-depth study of fatal and non-fatal accidents throughout all different work environments to produce a single value (Work Environment Characterization Factor) to summarize the risk of working in a certain economic sector. This has been presented via a series of tables showing all the intermediate steps of the calculation and the intermediate results (which are mainly coefficients, such ahs Years of Life Lost, Years Lived with Disability and Disabled Adjusted Life Years), and in the end the tables of all the Characterization Factors retrieved. The results obtained have then been scanned and compared with the original American study which, back in 2014, proposed the metric of Characterization Factors, related only to the American economic system. To make the comprehension of the method easier, the proposed method is integrated by a practical example of application to a real LCA study, which is the life cycle of the production a plastic bottle. The purpose of the case study is to be just an example of practical use of the method, and not a detailed application of the LCA tool.
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Ruviaro, Clandio Favarini. "Life cycle assessment in beef production in Brazil." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/67543.
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O Brasil é o segundo maior produtor de carne do mundo e produziu 7,5 milhões de toneladas de equivalente carcaça em 2011. O sistema de produção está baseado na utilização de pastagens, apresentando um variável índice de produtividade e tecnológico que incrementam a produção de carne bovina. A demanda mundial e, um consumidor mais consciente e atento à qualidade e segurança da diversidade de produtos disponíveis no mercado, tem contribuído para o estabelecimento de critérios sustentáveis de produção de alimentos e insumos. Neste contexto, este estudo descreve o resultado de uma pesquisa da literatura científica e dos documentos governamentais relacionados a aplicação da Avaliação do Ciclo de Vida (ACV) à produção agrícola mundial como forma de captar o estado da arte na área e identificar as tendências e mecanismos de rotulagem e certificação de produtos praticados no mercado internacional. A fim de se manter como um importante exportador de alimentos e insumos, o Brasil precisa esforçar-se para adaptar as metodologias de ACV e da avaliação do impacto do ciclo de vida (AICV) às peculiaridades do país e desenvolver um inventário do ciclo de vida (ICV) aplicável aos sistemas agropecuários. Sem dúvida, há uma tendência no mercado pela demanda de produtos agrícolas diferenciados que impulsiona a adoção de procedimentos de certificação institucional que informe aos consumidores sobre a qualidade da composição e da sustentabilidade na produção de alimentos. Seguindo esta tendência dinâmica do mercado, a rastreabilidade na produção de carne e a ACV foram apontados como meios para alicerçar um poderoso instrumento analítico na avaliação dos impactos ambientais e garantir a sustentabilidade da produção de carne bovina na região da Amazônia Legal. A ACV constitui-se em uma metodologia complementar e útil para introduzir o conceito de ciclo de vida e possibilitar sugestões de melhoria com foco no meio ambiente. É necessário destacar a importância da ACV na cadeia produtiva da carne bovina devido ao mercado estar dando sinais claros de que o consumidor esta exigindo produtos que respeitem o meio ambiente. O esforço conjunto dos setores de produção e do governo brasileiro para implementar e viabilizar o processo de rastreabilidade é elemento chave para assegurar ao agronegócio uma posição de destaque no cenário internacional. Por último, usando o enfoque da ACV, foi analisada e quantificada a pegada de carbono por unidade funcional de um típico sistema de produção de carne no sul do Brasil. Isto foi obtido definindo-se 7 cenários de produção de carne a campo de maneira a atender o padrão de terminação dos animais conforme as exigências do mercado. Os resultados indicaram que a pegada de carbono, em uma fazenda produtora de carne bovina na região da fronteira oeste do Rio Grande do Sul, variou entre 18,47 a 37,18 kg CO2-e/kg de ganho de peso, num sistema de produção de ciclo completo incluindo o período de gestação das vacas e, de 13,6 a 32,1 kg CO2--e/kg de ganho de peso, excluindo as emissões das vacas prenhes. Por fim, concluiu-se que no Brasil ainda há deficiência de pesquisas consolidadas em relação ao desenvolvimento e aplicação da ACV em processos e sistemas de produção agrícola e pecuária, portanto, são amplas as possibilidades e oportunidades para a aplicação desta metodologia com resultados significativos.Brazilian beef production is the second largest in the world and it produced 7.5 million tons carcass weight equivalent in 2011. Production systems are pasture-based, having variable production index and level of technology that increase beef cattle yields. Worldwide demand to set reliable environmental criteria for food and feed products has made consumers more conscious regarding the diversity of products, more attentive to its quality and security, and more concerned with the environmental aspects of production. In this context, this study describes the results of a search for scientific literature and government documents in relation to the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to agricultural products worldwide, as a way to capture state-of-the-art technology in the field and to identify the trends and drivers for labeling and certification requirements in international markets. In order to remain an important food and feed exporter, Brazil needs to make more efforts to adapt the methodologies of LCA and of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) to the peculiarities of the country and to develop a life cycle inventory (LCI) applicable to Brazil’s agricultural systems. No doubt, there is a trend in the market for the demand of differentiated food products that leads to the adoption of institutional food certification procedures which provide information to the consumers concerning the composition quality and the environmental amiability of the food. Following these trends in the dynamic market, the traceability of beef cattle production and LCA was addressed as a way to provide a powerful analytical instrument to evaluate the environmental impacts of beef production and strengthen its sustainability in the Legal Amazon region. The LCA is a complementary and useful methodology to introduce the concept of the life cycle and allow for suggestions for improvement with an environmental focus. It is necessary to underline the importance of LCA in the beef cattle chain of production because the market is clearly signalling that consumers are demanding products that respect the environment. The joint effort of the production sectors and the government in Brazil to implement and facilitate the process of traceability is key to ensuring a prominent position in the international agribusiness scene. Latter, using an LCA approach, the carbon footprint per functional unit for a typical beef production in southern of Brazil was analyzed and quantified. This was attained defining a typical beef production system and using the scenario options to the required trend in the beef production. The results indicated that the carbon footprint for a cattle farm sampled from the western frontier region of Rio Grande do Sul State, ranged from 18.47–37.18 kg CO2-e/kg of live weight gain (LWG) for a complete beef system including the contribution of cows, calves, and steers, and from 13.6 to 32.1 Kg CO2-e/kg LWG excluding pregnant cow emissions. Finally, comprising all studies, it can be concluded that in Brazil continues to lack consolidated studies regarding the development of LCA in agricultural production processes and systems and that there are therefore a large number of possibilities and opportunities to apply this methodology with meaningful results.
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Hau, Jorge Luis. "Integrating life cycle assessment, energy and emergy analysis." The Ohio State University, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407139681.
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Yossef, Delav, and Dino Hot. "Comparative life cycle assessment of organic building materials." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Institutionen för information och teknik, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-37774.
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The ever-increasing awareness of global warming has made the building industry startlooking for alternative building solutions in order to meet the changing demands. Thesechallenges have given rise to organization which aim to go further and construct moresustainable alternatives in the form of Ecovillages. This thesis is conducted in collaborationwith Bysjöstrans Ekoby and aims to investigate what type of organic alternatives exist andhow they perform in building elements.The study was carried out through a comparative LCA where a base case construction forboth roof and wall was established. Followed by comparing different organic materials toeach other and the base case materials in order to determine low-impact materials. The goalwas to replaces as many layers within the structure such as insulation, structure, roofcladding, façade, wind and vapor barrier.This was later followed by combing the materials together in order to identify whichalternative construction options would perform the best in regard to greenhouse gasemissions (CO2 eq kg) and primary energy use (MJ).The results of the study show that the performance or organic materials vary significantly.Whit a lot of materials being better but also worse than traditional materials. It showed thatfor internal wall and roof surface adding clay plater can reduce the GHG emission with 68%, timber frame with 98 %, façade with 43 %, roof cladding with 93 %, vapor barrier with76 % and insulation with 79 %. The best preforming construction option could reduce thebase case emission with 68 %.
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Gastelum, Zepeda Leonardo. "Life Cycle Assessment of a Wave Energy Converter." Thesis, KTH, Industriell ekologi, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-206486.
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Renewable energies had accomplish to become part of a new era in the energy development area, making people able to stop relying on fossil fuels. Nevertheless the environmental impacts of these new energy sources also require to be quantified in order to review how many benefits these new technologies have for the environment. In this project the use of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will be implemented in order to quantify the environmental impact of wave energy, an LCA is a technique for assessing various aspects with the development of a product and its potential impact throughout a product’s life (ISO 14040, 1997). Several renewables have been assessed for their environmental impact using this tool (wind power, biofuels, photovoltaic panels, among others). This project will be focused on the study of wave power, specifically devices called point absorbers.At the beginning this thesis offers a description of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology with a brief explanation of each steps and requirements according to the ISO 14000 Standard. Later a description of different wave energy technologies is explained, along with the classification of different devices depending on its location and its form of harvesting energy. After explaining the different types available at the moment, the thesis will focus on the point absorber device and explain an approach that can be taken in order to simplify the complexity of the whole system.Once the device is fully explained the thesis approaches the methodology pursued in order to evaluate the system in terms of environmental impact in the selected category, for this case global warming. After, an evaluation of the different modules from the wave energy converter in terms of its environmental impact and choosing the best conditions in order to reduce it has being done.At the end of the thesis an economical overview of building wave energy converters is considered among its monetized cost to the environment and a comparison of this new technologies among other renewables in the market is done, in order to have an overview of the potential this type of energy can have.The main research question to be answered by this master thesis is how competitive is wave energy among other renewable technologies available at the moment. Since at the moment wave energy is in its early stages a representation of how other renewables had advanced from its early stages until today is presented, and the potential of this type of energy is evaluated in environmental and economic figures showing competitive results that can further be improved.
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Ogino, Akifumi. "Life cycle assessment of Japanese animal production systems." Kyoto University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/136678.
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Asif, Muhammad. "Life cycle assessment of aluminium-clad timber windows." Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University, 2002. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2505.
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Over the last century a temperature rise of 0.6 C m global climate and the affiliated greenhouse effects have inflicted enormous impacts in the form of natural catastrophes, economical losses, health problems and seasonal disorder. If human activities continue at existing pace, a further temperature rise of 2.5 C is being anticipated over the next hundred years, which may cause unimaginable damage to humanity and ecology of the planet. In such a prevailing global environmental scenario sustainability is the need of hour and should be given the prime importance in execution of activities in all sectors in order to keep future secure for coming generations. Windows are amongst the most sensitive elements in a building envelope, also, due to their multi-disciplinary role, they are important not only for their effects on interior environment but also for the energy performance of the building. Energy contents and environmental impacts of the materials involved, add up on to window significance in the ecology of buildings. Energy efficient windows with least possible environmental burden over their whole life cycle are thus very important in achieving desired levels of sustainability in general, particularly in buildings. The present work addresses the sustainability of double glazed aluminium clad timber windows adopting the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. LCA of windows helps cutting down the associated ecological burdens at all stages, i.e. extraction/production of materials, operation, maintenance and disposal of windows at the end of their service life. Cost effectiveness and productivity, the important features of sustainability, have been evaluated for aluminium clad timber and timber windows on the basis of life cycle cost assessment (LCCA) approach. Value engineering (VE) of aluminium clad timber windows has also been addressed. Running and/or maintenance costs which largely determine the life cycle costing have been estimated and the most cost effective options are presented. Four different types of windows, made of aluminium, aluminium clad timber, PVC and timber frame, have also been compared with respect to the ecology of frame materials - covering energy contents and environmental loads, maintenance and durability, service life and costing. A survey has been carried out with the help of housing authorities, architects and surveyors within UK, to study the performance of these windows in real life. A series of accelerated tests have been carried out to study the weathering performance of the candidate windows. The results have revealed that aluminium clad timber windows have excellent resistance against weathering conditions and they perform better than aluminium, PVC and timber windows under any conditions. In an ongoing research project at Napier, copper (Cu) coated silicon carbide (SiC) reinforcement particles have been used in aluminium 6061 matrix to enhance the mechanical properties of the Al SiC metal matrix composite (MMC), which is a prospective material to be used in window hardware. Results have indicated that Cu coating does not bring any additional corrosion loads onto the MMC. Recommendations for further work have also been laid out.
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Tran, L. (Linh). "Life cycle assessment of ground mounted photovoltaic panels." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2019. http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/nbnfioulu-201908022724.
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Abstract. Nowadays, the problem of carbon emission attracts a lot of attention from people in the world. To solve this problem, many solutions are proposed to get the target of Greenhouse Gas emission reduction. Among of all, the increase of the share of renewable energy is known as a feasible and promising approach for achieving this goal. Solar power and wind power is considered as two dominant renewable sources having a significant contribution to the power generation as well as reducing CO₂ emissions. In this study, ground mounted photovoltaic plant is taken as a approach for achieving this target.
The objective of the study was to answer three research questions: (1) What are the life-cycle environmental impacts of ground-mounted photovoltaic (GMPV) systems; (2) What are the missing data to perform life cycle assessment (LCA) of GMPV? and (3)What are the future development projections for GMPV and how would they impact on their LCA? Furthermore, the state of the art of GMPV technology is also reviewed.
The thesis is based on the data of Ecoinvent v3.3, available in open LCA, associating with six cases studies on GMPV, will give an evaluation about the state of the art of technology, the data gap of GMPV in Ecoinvent v3.3. The LCA method is known as a quantitative approach which is utilized to make an evaluation of whole process of a product. The four steps of LCA are goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation.
Based on the six case studies from literature, the data gaps were recognized regarding the power output, number of modules, performance module and degradation rate, and the materials in the mounting system. These data gaps are very important because they have the significant impacts on the implementation of LCA approach. If these data gaps were filled, operators would be likely to have a more precise evaluation of GMPV systems.
It was concluded that multicrystalline silicon module is the commercially available material with highest efficiency but, because of their high cost, the development is shifted towards CdTe thin film materials. CdTe thin film is gradually proving its position in the photovoltaic (PV) commercial market because of growing efficiency and reasonable cost, which are very important when applying in the large scale of GMPV systems. Finally, it was suggested that the third generation technology, which is the combination between Generation 1 technology and Generation II technology with the feature of high efficiency and reasonable cost, has the highest potential for applying in GMPV.
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Lohse, Tim. "Life cycle assessment of a plus-energy house." Thesis, KTH, Hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-266478.
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Purpose: This study analyses the environmental impacts of a plus-energy house. Such buildings produce more energy in their use-phase than they consume, by generating energy with photovoltaic cells and saving energy via extensive insulation. The entire life cycle of the building is investigated form cradle to grave. The research focuses on the identification of environmental hotspots and the break-even time, after which the avoided burdens from the energy surplus even out the environmental impacts. Method: To answer the research questions, an ISO 14040 compliant environmental impact assessment (LCA) was conducted. It covers the raw material extraction, production and manufacturing of the building, the energy consumption by the inhabitants, the demolition and subsequent waste processing as well as the energy generation from the photovoltaic cells during 50 years lifetime. The life cycle impact assessment method was based on EN 15804 with seven impact categories: global warming potential, depletion potential of the stratospheric ozone, acidification potential of soil and water, eutrophication potential, formation potential of tropospheric ozone, abiotic depletion potential for non-fossil resources, and abiotic depletion potential for fossil resources. Results: The use-phase with energy generation and consumption dominates in all the impact categories except for the stratospheric ozone depletion potential. Photovoltaic cell production has the largest impact in terms of resource and ozone depletion. The building does not set off its impacts with its avoided burdens during its lifetime. The break-even time is calculated for each impact category and starts at 654 years for global warming potential. The geometric standard deviation is calculated for every process, so that a Monte-Carlo simulation can be run. This makes it possible to calculate the standard deviation of the results. Discussion: It is possible to enhance the environmental performance of the building by focusing on the hotspots. A sensitivity analysis shows that enhancing the energy surplus during the use-phase would be the most effective measure. This could be achieved by increasing the photovoltaic cell area or decreasing the energy consumption.