LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

How to evaluate „greenness“?• To evaluate environmental impact of a process or product,

unified methodology is needed• All stages of product „life“ need to be taken into acccount• Raw materials extraction, transportation• Production• Transportation• Use• Reuse and recycling• Disposal• Respective energy inputs

• This will provide knowledge whether improvements are truly made

Example: VOCs adsorption• Used to remove various VOCs from air (10 to 10 000 ppm and

1 to 1000 m3 h-1)• Efficient

• Adsorbent gets filled with pollutant• Concentrated pollution• Change or regeneration needed• Change: filled adsorbent disposal• Regeneration: secondary concentrated pollutant stream

Solution: Life cycle assessment (LCA)• Enables the evaluation of real environmental impact of the

process• Provides universal measurement criteria to evaluate specific

impacts• Identifies key environmental impacts of various stages of

production process• Identification of principle environmentally problematic issues

allows better resource planning and optimisation• Provides information for process/product design/redesign and

decision making• Identifies information gaps• Provides scientific data that can be used by enterprises for

marketing schemes (environmental friendly-claims, etc.)

LCA standartised by ISO• ISO14040 – LCA principles and framework (general principles

and requirements for conducting LCA)• ISO14041 – goal and scope and inventory analysis• ISO14042 – life cycle impact assessment procedure• ISO14043 – life cycle interpretation• ISO14044 – requirements and guidelines• ISO14045 – eco-efficiency assessment of product systems

(principles, requirements, guidelines)• ISO14046 – water footprint assessment• ISO14047 – examples on ISO14044 applications• ISO14048 – data documentation format• ISO14049 – examples of ISO14044 applications on goal and

scope definitions and inventory analysis

Product life cycle: cradle to grave

LCA step-by-step (1)• Defining scopes and goals• Intended application• Reasons for performing LCA• Intended audience• Publicity of the results• What steps are included or excluded

• Process flow diagramme examination• Flows• Energy inputs and outputs• Emissions• Recycling possibilities• Etc.

LCA step-by-step (2)• Collection of all possible process-related data• Calculations• Data validation• Refining system boundaries• Are available calculations sufficient?• Is everything that we need included?• Is there unnecessary information that can be excluded?

• Results to be interpreted

Phases of LCA

Image: http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/lcaPage.vm

Major environmental impacts analysed• Greenhouse gas emissions• Other atmospheric emissions (toxics, carcinogens, etc.)• Aquatic emissions (toxicity, eutrophication, acidification, etc.)• Soil emissions• Land use• Ecotoxicity• Ozone layer depletion• Ionizing radiation• Energy use and sources

CASE STUDY: LCA OF THREE LAMP TYPES (US DOE, 2012)

Pre-requisites• Three lamp types chosen:• Incandescent lamps (IND)• Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL)• Light emission diodes (LED)

• Base for calculations: service provided by a single 60-W LED, i.e. 20 million lumen-hours

• Number of lamps needed to supply 20 million lumen-hours:

Image: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Major issues• How high is the energy consumption at different life cycle

phases of LED lamps? • How comparable is it to the corresponding energy

consumptions of IND and CFL lamps?• What are the possible future changes for LED life-cycle energy

consumption?

Data analysed• Production phase• Raw materials aquisition• Processing• Product assembly

• Transportation phase• Usage phase• Energy consumption calculated from the assumed watt and

lumen characteristics

Global warming potential

• CO2 is considered to be main greenhouse gasWhat other greenhouse gases can you name? What about their

global warming potential?

• CO2 emissions can be converted into energy consumption, and vice versa

• On producing 1 kW h of energy, 706 g of CO2 are emitted• Major calculations are done by respective software

LED lamp compositionComponent name Material Mass, g Content,

%Glass bulb Glass 10.7 13LED board connectors Au-plated Cu 0.5 0.6Array (9 LEDs) 1.5 1.8Local heat sink ring Al 5.7 6.9Heat sink outer cone Al 18.1 22Heat sink inner cylinder Al 13.1 15.8Edison base insulator Acrylic,

polycarbonate4.2 5.1

Inner insulation and adhesive connections

Acrylic, polycarbonate

6.6 8

Printed circuit board, capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes

10.1 12.2

Edison base and leads Sn-plated steel 12.2 14.8Total 87 100

Source: Hendrickson et al., Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (2010) 014016, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014016

Comparison of LED with IND and CFL lamps

Component Lamp typeLED CFL IND

Edison screw Tinplate steel Tinplate steel Tinplate steelBase assembly Copper, solder, insulate,

porcelainCopper, solder, insulate Copper, solder, insulate

Ballast/Driver Printed circuit board, resistors, transistors, inductors, capacitors, diodes, copper wire,

Teflon® tubing

Printed circuit board, resistors, transistors, inductors, capacitors, diodes, copper wire

-

Heat sink Aluminium, copper, plastic

- -

LED module LED die, aluminium, plastics, copper wire

- -

Housing Plastic, glass, copper wire

Plastic, glass, copper wire

-

Filament - Electrodes TungstenGas - Mercury -Optics Glass, plastic Glass GlassTotal mass range, g 83-290 91-110 30-32

Adopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Average energy consumption for producing lamps providing 20 million lumen-hours

Production IND CFL 2011 LED (16 LED Package)

Future 2015 LED (5 LED Package)

Av Av Av Av

Bulk Lamp Material

42.2 170 87.3 58.5

1 LED Package*

- - 16 14.6

Total LED Packages

contribution

- - 256 73

Total 42.2 170 343 132

Units – MJ per 20 million lumen-hoursAdopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Transportation analysis (1)• Considers energy consumption on transportation from

manufacrturers to retailers• Storage facilities are not taken into account: similar for

different lamp types• Steps: • locating the starting point, i.e. the manufacturer origin• establish transport type and its load and space capacity• total transportation energy per one lamp establishment• recalculation to 20 million lumen-hour base

Transportation analysis (2)• End point: retailers in Washington, DC• IND, production: China and Nort-east US• Lamps from China shipped from Shanghai to Los Angeles (LA),

delivered to Washington by truck• Lamps from Nort-eastern US delivered to Washington by truck

• CFL, production: China• Lamps delivered from Shanghai to Washington as previously

• LEDs: highly fragmented marketoften different parts produced and assembled at different locations• Scenario 1: complete LED packages produced in Taiwan, shipped

to LA, trucks to Washington• Scenario 2: LEDs produced in Taiwan, delivered to South-east US,

assembled into complete packages, delivered to Washington by trucks

Transportation means characteristics

Transportation means

Cargo capacity, t Efficiency, L h-1 Fuel type Embodied fuel energy, MJ L-1

Container ship 19 200 7.1 Bunker fuel 41.7

Commercial truck 25 10.4 Diesel 38.7

Embodied energy is defined as the total energy consumption for the production of goods or services, considered as if consumed energy was incorporated (“embodied”) in the final product.

Adopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Energy consumption on transportation

Lamp type Energy use

MJ kg-1 MJ/(20 million lumen-hours)

IND 7.63 0.27

CFL 15.1 1.57

LED - present 14.8 2.71

LED – future (2015) 14.8 1.69

Adopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Energy consumption upon lamp use

Lamp type Power, W Luminous flux, lm

LED packages per lamp

Lifetime, h Energy use, MJ/(20 million lumen-hours)

IND 60 900 - 1 000 15 100 Halogen 43 750 - 1 000 13 000

CFL 15 900 - 8 500 3 780 LED -

present12.5 800 16 25 000 3 540

LED - future (2015)

5.8 800 5 40 000 1 630

Adopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf

Total energy consumption of different lamp types

Adopted from: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/2012_LED_Lifecycle_Report.pdf