Review of life cycle assessment on consumer electronic products: Developments and the way ahead

Designing environmentally friendly products has become a tighter requirement in the marketplace because of both the increasing trend in awareness of consumers and the obligations from legislation requirements. Unfortunately, this is not a straight forward decision for designers to evaluate whether their design options are satisfactory in terms of balancing various factors (for examples, different forms of environmental assessment) or not. This is partly attributed to the fact that there is no universally accepted approach for conducting such analysis. In this connection, this research makes reference to a European Union (EU) directive as a reference model and makes use of Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP), which is a useful tool to help designers to make decision, for evaluating eco-design options. The AHP model is developed based on two case studies on consumer electronic products. Pairwise comparisons, one of the key steps in AHP, are conducted with the expertise gained from the case studies and the help from the software package Expert Choice. The paper also reveals how design options can be evaluated, or be screened out. The proposed method does not require the designers to conduct detailed analysis (life-cycle assessment for example) for every new product options and hence can save their time. This is particularly important when they are facing shorter and shorter product life cycle nowadays.

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Sustainable Construction Achieved Through Life Cycle Assessment: Methodology, Limitations and the Way Forward

Encyclopedia of Renewable and Sustainable Materials ◽

10.1016/b978-0-12-803581-8.11360-8 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 576-583 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Karoline Figueiredo ◽

Ahmed W.A. Hammad ◽

Assed Haddad

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Sustainable Construction ◽

Assessment Methodology ◽

Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽

The Way

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Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Mobile Power Banks with Lithium-Ion Battery and Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11195148 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (19) ◽

pp. 5148 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yang ◽

Gu ◽

Guo ◽

Chen

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle Assessment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Lithium Ion Battery ◽

Environmental Impacts ◽

Environmental Performance ◽

Lithium Ion ◽

Management Policy ◽

Consumer Electronic ◽

Lithium Ion Polymer Battery ◽

Polymer Battery

Mobile power bank (MPB) is an emerging consumer electronic that stores and delivers electricity to other electronics. Nowadays, MPBs are produced and discarded in massive quantities, yet their environmental impacts have never been quantitatively evaluated. Employing a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, this study assesses the life cycle environmental impacts of MPBs, with a specific focus on comparing the environmental performance of different MPBs that are based on two types of batteries, namely, lithium-ion battery (LIB) and lithium-ion polymer battery (LIPB). The results suggest that battery production is the greatest contributor to the environmental impacts of both MPBs. LIPB based MPB is environmentally friendlier due to its higher energy density and longer cycle life. In addition, it is found that recycling can reduce the environmental burden of MPB industry as well as ease the vast depletion of metals such as cobalt and copper. The sensitivity analysis shows that figuring out an optimal retirement point and using less carbon-intensive electricity can reduce the climate change potential of MPBs. This study provides recommendations to further improve the environmental performance of MPB, including the usage of more sustainable cathode materials, market promoting direction, and formulation of end-of-life management policy.

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