Life cycle inventory production

Once the life-cycle inventory has been quantified, we can attempt to characterize and assess the eflfects of the environmental emissions in a life-cycle impact analysis. While the life-cycle inventory can, in principle at least, be readily assessed, the resulting impact is far from straightforward to assess. Environmental impacts are usually not directly comparable. For example, how do we compare the production of a kilogram of heavy metal sludge waste with the production of a ton of contaminated aqueous waste A comparision of two life cycles is required to pick the preferred life cycle. 

Jensen WB (1997) A note on the term Chalcogen . J Chem Educ 74 1063-1064 Fischer W (2001) A second note on the term Chalcogen . J Chem Educ 78 1333 Fthenakis V, Wang W, Kim HC (2009) Life cycle inventory analysis of the production of metals used in photovoltaics. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 13 493-517 Waitkins GR, Bearse AE, Shutt R (1942) Industrial utilization of selenium and tellurium. Ind Eng Chem 34 899-910... 

The production of the agrochemical 6 (Scheme 5.7) is carried out batchwise via a three-step protocol. Mass balancing has been conducted for three stages of development Laboratory-, pilot- and operation scale. An LCA was available for the operation stage only. A description of this LCA including data sources and data acquisition methods was published by Geisler et al. (product A in reference [9] corresponds to product 6 here). Many parameters in the Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) are estimated, especially utihty demands and yields of processes for the production of precursors. Uncertainty in these estimations was illustrated in a... 

Jimenez-Gonzalez, C. Overcash, M.R. (2000) Energy Sub-Modules Applied in Life-Cycle Inventory of Processes. Clean Products and Processes, 2(1), 57-66. 

Similarly, Overcash et al. [32] produced an engineering rule-of-practice-based analysis of separate unit processes used in manufacturing. The information is collated in the form of a unit process life cycle inventory, which then helps to evaluate the manufactured products through the quantification of various parameters, including input materials, energy requirements, material losses and machine variables. 

Overcash, M., Twomey, J., and Kalla, D., 2009. Unit process life cycle inventory for product manufacturing operations, ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, West Lafayette, IN, USA. 

Abstract Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful tool to assess impacts of cradle-to-grave chains of products/services. In the Riskcycle framework, the focus is on additives. Additives are usually minor constituents of products, but depending on their specific properties they can be important in the total scope of impacts of such products. In the LCA literature, additives are hardly visible. Most case studies of products containing additives do not mention them. The reasons for this are unclear, but are at least partly due to the fact that information on additives is not included in standard LCA databases. This is true for both life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) databases. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude whether or not additives indeed are important contributors to environmental impacts over the life cycle. 

Life-cycle inventory Objective, data-based process of quantifying energy and raw material requirements, air emissions, and all odier environmental releases incurred diroughout die life cycle of a product, process, or activity. 

The core of LCA is a cradle-to-grave life-cycle inventory analysis that is fundamentally an engineering exercise describing a chemical, material, and energy accounting balance for the entire product system. The various inputs and outputs are collected or inventoried for each unit operation in the defined system (see fig. 4.4). A key qualifier in the figure is the definition of the system boundary, as it will directly affect the quality of the final results and conclusions. The inventory practice and methods are relatively well defined. 

Life-cycle inventory (LCI) deals with the material inventories of each phase of a product life, namely by tracking the variation between input and output flows. 

As depicted in Figure 1, a life-cycle inventory may involve all stages in production, use, and disposal, including raw material extraction, transportation, primary processing, conversion to finished products, incorporahon into finished products, maintenance and repair, and disposal. The system boundary (indicated by the dashed line) dehnes those operahons to be included in the inventory of environmental impacts. 

Eigure 2 illustrates how the life-cycle inventory fits within a life-cycle assessment. The LCI, shown as the large box at the top center of Figure 2, provides essential data regarding resource use and emissions to air, water, and ground. The impact assessment examines aspects of product production and use that are not considered in the LCI impacts on ecosystem and human health, implications for long-term resource availability, and considerations relative to social equity and well being. 

Table 6 Summary of Life-cycle Inventory Results for 1.0 MSF 3/8-inch Basis Plywood Production in the Pacific Northwest Region—a Comparison of Total to Site-generated Emissions (From Ref. 12)...

A life-cycle inventory analysis [4] has examined the performance of lead production and battery manufacturing facilities in North America. This study collected data descriptive of industrial emissions in the base year of 1995-1996. The mass flows indicated that the estimates offered by Socolow and Thomas [24] are indeed characteristic of the industry. Secondary lead production was associated with losses to air and water of the order of 0.009%. Lead losses during battery production amounted to 0.002% of material processed. These estimates are some three orders of magnitude lower than those made by Lave et al. [23]. Levels of lead release continue to decrease with improvements in technology and operating practice. 

Table IV summarizes some well known life cycle inventories that have been conducted in the United States. As shown in Table IV, life cycle inventories have been most frequently used to compare different products—for example, cloth and disposable diapers. Such comparisons are generally ambiguous, however, providing no clear answer about which...

Waste audits may be performed at the waste, product, or facility level. Waste-level audits simply require that each waste stream and its source be identified. Although this approach is the simplest, it ignores the implications and interactions of the waste stream as a whole. Waste audits performed at the product level are product life cycle inventory assessments, which are discussed in Section 4.3. Facility waste audits are the most common type of audit because most environmental laws require discharge reporting by facility. Estimating plant-wide emissions is discussed in Chapter 19. 

Nylon 66 polymer production — (Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories (Ecoinvent Centre, 2010) 8.00... 

Nemecek, T., Kagi, T., 2007. Life Cycle Inventories of Agricultural Production Systems. Final report Ecoinvent v.2.0. Zurich and Dubendorf. 

---