Integrating LCA in process development

Abstract

The development of environmentally friendly processes & products is becoming increasingly important to meet global challenges, but how can we prove that our development is really more sustainable than existing systems? Or how can we find out for different process variants on which substances we should focus in terms of sustainability? One of the preeminent tools for quantifying environmental sustainability is the life cycle assessment (LCA). It aims to quantify the environmental impacts by capturing relevant environmental flows across a product’s life cycle (from raw material extraction and manufacturing, through distribution, use and disposal), assigns these flows relevant impact categories and converts those within an impact category into common units such as litres of water withdrawal or kg CO2 equivalents/unit[1]. Life cycle analyses have been trying to make these effects measurable since the 70s and are often used with objectives such as product optimisation or product comparison [2]. Mostly, however, the focus here was on already existing products with established processes, so that working with processes in development places new demands on the methodology. The political support for a change towards a more sustainable way of doing business is also driving the need to assess products for ecological compatibility from the very beginning in the field of technology development and therefore enables companies and researchers to reduce cost consuming exploration of process ways, who will have little chance of standing stricter environmental legislation. However, since LCAs are more and more often prescribed in projects and scientists should be able to use the results for their own work in order to further develop processes, an introduction to this matter is given here, introducing the current PhD-work and outlining LCA-types that might be encountered at low Technology Rediness Levels (TRL).