scholarly journals Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Safety Shoes Toe Caps Manufacturing Processes

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iacopo Bianchi ◽  
Archimede Forcellese ◽  
Michela Simoncini ◽  
Alessio Vita ◽  
Vincenzo Castorani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Fiber ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Fiber Composite ◽  
Manufacturing Processes ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Safety Regulations ◽  
Glass Fiber Composite

Abstract Toe caps are fundamental components of safety footwear used to prevent injuries which can be caused by falling objects. They can be realized by exploiting different materials (metal, composites and plastics) and manufacturing processes (stamping, injection molding, compression molding, etc.). However, they have always to fulfill the stringent requirements of safety regulations. In addition, in order to guarantee an ergonomic use, they must be as light as possible. It is estimated that at least 300 million pairs of safety footwear, with 600 million of toe caps, end up in landfill or are incinerated every year. This huge amount of wastes generates a relevant environmental impact, mainly attributable to toe caps manufacturing. In this context, it is important to develop new solutions which minimize the environmental impacts of toe caps manufacturing. Among others, the reuse of carbon fiber prepreg scraps has been recognized as a valid method to produce effective toe caps. In this paper, a detailed analysis of the environmental impacts associated to toe caps realized with reclaimed prepreg scraps has been conducted exploiting the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. The results have been compared to those obtained by analyzing toe caps realized in steel, aluminum, polycarbonate and glass fiber composite. Results demonstrate that the reclaim process for carbon fiber prepreg scraps can be a valid circular economy model to produce more sustainable toe caps for safety footwear.

The Application of the Life-Cycle Assessment in the Building Sector: An Italian Case Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Maurizio Cellura ◽  
Francesco Guarino ◽  
Sonia Longo
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Life Cycle Thinking ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Building Sector ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

The building sector is one of the most relevant in terms of generation of wealth and occupation, but it is also responsible for significant consumption of natural resources and the generation of environmental impacts, mainly greenhouse gas emissions. In order to improve the eco profile of buildings during their life-cycle, the reduction of the use of resources and the minimization of environmental impacts have become, in the last years, some of the main objectives to achieve in the design of sustainable buildings. The application of the life-cycle thinking approach, looking at the whole life cycle of buildings, is of paramount importance for a real decarbonization and reduction of the environmental impacts of the building sector. This paper presents an application of the life-cycle assessment methodology for assessing the energy and environmental life-cycle impacts of a single-family house located in the Mediterranean area in order to identify the building components and life-cycle steps that are responsible of the higher burdens. The assessment showed that the largest impacts are located in the use stage; energy for heating is significant but not dominant, while the contribution of electricity utilized for households and other equipment resulted very relevant. High environmental impacts are also due to manufacture and transport of building materials and components.

scholarly journals Comparative life cycle assessment of carbon fiber reinforced compositecomponents for automotive industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archimede Forcellese ◽  
Tommaso Mancia ◽  
Michela Simoncini ◽  
Serena Gentili ◽  
Marco Marconi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Fiber ◽  
Automotive Industry ◽  
Manufacturing Process ◽  
Manufacturing Processes ◽  
Fiber Reinforced ◽  
Environmental Loads ◽  
Autoclave Curing ◽  
Manufacturing Time

Advanced materials, especially carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRP), have gained the attention of different industries whichproduce lightweight and high-performance components. The most used manufacturing processes to realize these kinds of products are Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) and vacuum bag molding with autoclave curing. RTM is based on dry fiber technology and it appears the most promising manufacturing process to realized high-quality carbon fiber parts reducing cost and manufacturing time, especially if high pressure variants are employed. On the other hand, vacuum bag molding with autoclave curing is a very consolidated process which is, however, associated with long manufacturing time and costs as well as to low repeatability of the process due to the high labor input. Out-of-autoclave methods, such as pressure bag molding (PBM) have been developed to overcome the issues of vacuum bag molding process. From the environmental point of view, the manufacturing of CFRP components is associated with high environmental loads due to the impacts related to both raw materials and manufacturing processes. For this reason, reducing the energy consumption of production phases can lead to the development of greener CFRP products. In this context, the main scope of the present research is to evaluate and compare the environmental loads of a component for the automotive industry realized exploiting the RTM, the PBM and the bag molding processes to determine which one is eco-friendlier. This analysis has been conducted following the standard Life Cycle Assessment methodology based on a “cradle to gate” approach. In this way, the use phase and the disposal of the CFRP component have not been included in the analysis. Results have been evaluated by comparing the equivalent CO2 related to each manufacturing process.

Environmental impacts of peanut production system using life cycle assessment methodology

2015 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 84-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amin Nikkhah ◽  
Mehdi Khojastehpour ◽  
Bagher Emadi ◽  
Alireza Taheri-Rad ◽  
Surur Khorramdel
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Production System ◽  
Assessment Methodology ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Peanut Production

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Solar Façade Concepts Based on Transparent Insulation Materials

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Struhala ◽  
Miroslav Čekon ◽  
Richard Slávik
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Energy Gains ◽  
Solar Wall ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

Contemporary architecture and construction industry are trying to cope with increasing requirements concerning energy efficiency and environmental impacts. One of the available options is the active utilization of energy gains from the environment, specifically solar energy gains. These gains can be utilized by, for example, solar walls and facades. The solar façade concept has been under development for more than a century. However, it has not achieved widespread use for various reasons. Rather recently the concept was enhanced by the application of transparent insulation materials that have the potential to increase the efficiency of such façades. The presented study evaluates the environmental efficiency of 10 solar façade assemblies in the mild climate of the Czech Republic, Central Europe. The evaluated façade assemblies combine the principles of a solar wall with transparent insulation based on honeycomb and polycarbonate panels. The study applies Life-Cycle Assessment methodology to the calculation of environmental impacts related to the life cycle of the evaluated assemblies. The results indicate that even though there are several limiting factors, façade assemblies with transparent insulation have lower environmental impacts compared to a reference assembly with standard thermal insulation. The highest achieved difference is approx. 84% (in favor of the assembly with transparent insulation) during a modelled 50-year façade assembly service life.

scholarly journals Environmental Impacts Associated with Intensive Production in Pig Farms in Mexico through Life Cycle Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11248
Author(s):  
Mario Rafael Giraldi-Díaz ◽  
Eduardo Castillo-González ◽  
Lorena De Medina-Salas ◽  
Raúl Velásquez-De la Cruz ◽  
Héctor Daniel Huerta-Silva
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Pig Slurry ◽  
Growth Phases ◽  
Product System ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Intensive Production ◽  
Pig Farm

In this research, environmental impacts associated with the intensive production of pigs on a farm in Mexico were determined through the application of life cycle assessment methodology. The research was focused on the following stages of the product system: (i) pig rearing and growth phases; (ii) production operations in the pig-house; (iii) the supply of feed. The life cycle inventory database was mainly made up of data collected in field visits to local farms. The functional unit was defined as one finished swine weighing 124 kg. The results for the selected impact categories of carbon, water, and energy footprints were 538.62 kg CO2eq, 21.34 m3, and 1773.79 MJ, respectively. The greatest impact was generated in the final stages of pig fattening, mainly due to the large quantity of feed supplied. The impacts caused by operation of the pig farm were less significant, their contribution in all cases was less than a third of the total quantified values. The energy conversion of pig slurry improves the environmental performance of the product system by reducing the carbon footprint.

Toward Standards-Based Generation of Reusable Life Cycle Inventory Data Models for Manufacturing Processes

2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Brundage ◽  
David Lechevalier ◽  
K. C. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Life Cycle Inventory ◽  
Manufacturing Processes ◽  
Inventory Data ◽  
Life Cycle Inventory Data ◽  
Quality Assessments ◽  
Lci Data

The production stage of a product's life cycle can significantly contribute to its overall environmental impact. Estimates of environmental impact for a product are typically produced using life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. These methods rely on life cycle inventory (LCI) data containing impact estimates of manufacturing processes and other operations that contribute to a product's creation. The accuracy of LCI data is critical for quality assessments; however, these data are often insufficient in the types and varieties of manufacturing processes covered and are often only a coarse estimate of actual impacts. At the same time, much manufacturing research focuses on how to model, measure, assess, and reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing processes. Recent standards emerging from ASTM International define a structured format for presenting these studies in a reusable way. In this paper, we investigate the potential for using the ASTM E3012-16 format to generate LCI datasets suitable to perform LCA by mapping from the ASTM standard into the widely adopted ecoSpold2 format. A process is presented for generating LCI datasets from ASTM models, and overlaps and gaps between the two standards are identified.

Life cycle assessment comparison of activated sludge, trickling filter, and high-rate anaerobic-aerobic digestion (HRAAD)

2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (10) ◽  
pp. 2353-2360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Postacchini ◽  
Krishna M. Lamichhane ◽  
Dennis Furukawa ◽  
Roger W. Babcock ◽  
F. E. Ciarapica ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Activated Sludge ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Municipal Wastewater ◽  
Oxygen Demand ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Trickling Filter ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Aerobic Digestion

This paper conducts a comparative assessment of the environmental impacts of three methods of treating primary clarifier effluent in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) through life cycle assessment methodology. The three technologies, activated sludge (AS), high rate anaerobic-aerobic digestion (HRAAD), and trickling filter (TF), were assessed for treatment of wastewater possessing average values of biochemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids of 90 mg L−1 and 70 mg L−1, respectively. The operational requirements to process the municipal wastewater to effluent that meets USEPA regulations have been calculated. The data for the AS system were collected from the East Honolulu WWTP (Hawaii, USA) while data for the HRAAD system were collected from a demonstration-scale system at the same plant. The data for the TF system were estimated from published literature. Two different assessment methods have been used in this study: IMPACT 2002+ and TRACI 2. The results show that TF had the smallest environmental impacts and that AS had the largest, while HRAAD was in between the two but with much reduced impacts compared with AS. Additionally, the study shows that lower sludge production is the greatest advantage of HRAAD for reducing environmental impacts compared with AS.

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