scholarly journals Pig manure treatment with housefly (Musca domestica) rearing – an environmental life cycle assessment

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Roffeis ◽  
B. Muys ◽  
J. Almeida ◽  
E. Mathijs ◽  
W.M.J. Achten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
Pig Manure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Land Occupation ◽  
Manure Treatment ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
Depletion Potential

The largest portion of a product’s environmental impacts and costs of manufacturing and use results from decisions taken in the conceptual design phase long before its market entry. To foster sustainable production patterns, applying life cycle assessment in the early product development stage is gaining importance. Following recent scientific studies on using dipteran fly species for waste management, this paper presents an assessment of two insect-based manure treatment systems. Considering the necessity of manure treatment in regions with concentrated animal operations, reducing excess manure volumes with the means of insects presents a potentially convenient method to combine waste reduction and nutrient recovery. An analytical comparison of rearing houseflies on fresh and pre-treated pig manure is reported with reference to agricultural land occupation, water and fossil depletion potential. Based on ex-ante modelled industrial scale rearing systems, the driving factors of performance and environmentally sensitive aspects of the rearing process have been assessed. Expressed per kg manure dry matter reduction, the estimated agricultural land occupation varied between 1.4 and 2.7 m2yr, fossil depletion potential ranged from 1.9 to 3.4 kgoil eq and the obtained water depletion potential was calculated from 36.4 to 65.6 m3. System improvement potential was identified for heating related energy usage and water consumption. The geographical context and the utility of the co-products, i.e. residue substrates and insect products, were determined as influential variables to the application potential of this novel manure treatment concept. The results of this study, applied at the earliest stages of the design of the process, assist evaluation of the feasibility of such a system and provide guidance for future research and development activities.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Valuation of Biochar Production: Two Case Studies in Belgium

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 2166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Rajabi Hamedani ◽  
Tom Kuppens ◽  
Robert Malina ◽  
Enrico Bocci ◽  
Andrea Colantoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Pig Manure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Life Cycle Perspective ◽  
The Impact

It is unclear whether the production of biochar is economically feasible. As a consequence, firms do not often invest in biochar production plants. However, biochar production and application might be desirable from a societal perspective as it might entail net environmental benefits. Hence, the aim of this work has been to assess and monetize the environmental impacts of biochar production systems so that the environmental aspects can be integrated with the economic and social ones later on to quantify the total return for society. Therefore, a life cycle analysis (LCA) has been performed for two potential biochar production systems in Belgium based on two different feedstocks: (i) willow and (ii) pig manure. First, the environmental impacts of the two biochar production systems are assessed from a life cycle perspective, assuming one ton of biochar as the functional unit. Therefore, LCA using SimaPro software has been performed both on the midpoint and endpoint level. Biochar production from willow achieves better results compared to biochar from pig manure for all environmental impact categories considered. In a second step, monetary valuation has been applied to the LCA results in order to weigh environmental benefits against environmental costs using the Ecotax, Ecovalue, and Stepwise approach. Consequently, sensitivity analysis investigates the impact of variation in NPK savings and byproducts of the biochar production process on monetized life cycle assessment results. As a result, it is suggested that biochar production from willow is preferred to biochar production from pig manure from an environmental point of view. In future research, those monetized environmental impacts will be integrated within existing techno-economic models that calculate the financial viability from an investor’s point of view, so that the total return for society can be quantified and the preferred biochar production system from a societal point of view can be identified.

scholarly journals Dairy Buffalo Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Affected by a Management Choice: The Production of Wheat Crop

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 11108
Author(s):  
Elio Romano ◽  
Pasquale De Palo ◽  
Flavio Tidona ◽  
Aristide Maggiolino ◽  
Andrea Bragaglio
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Wheat Crop ◽  
Land Occupation ◽  
Economic Allocation ◽  
Acidification Potential ◽  
Dairy Buffalo ◽  
Management Choice

Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed in dairy buffalo farms representative of Southern Italian farming systems, similar due to several characteristics, with the exception of wheat production. This work evaluated the impacts derived from this management choice, comparing farms with wheat crop (WWC) or not (NWC). In agreement with the literature, economic allocation was chosen as a useful strategy to attribute equivalents to by-products, i.e., culled animals; the same criterion was also adopted to assign pollutants to wheat grain, limited to WWC farms. Environmental impacts in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP, kg CO2 eq), Acidification Potential (AC, g SO2 eq), Eutrophication Potential (EU, g PO43-eq), Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO, m2y) and Water Depletion (WD, m3) were estimated. The production of wheat crop significantly affected (p < 0.05) the Agricultural Land Occupation (ALO) category as WWC farms need adequate land. WWC farms could allow a significant reduction in eutrophication (EU) compared to NWC farms (p < 0.05).

Life cycle assessment of biological pig manure treatment versus direct land application − a trade-off story

2018 ◽  
Vol 131 ◽  
pp. 86-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Corbala-Robles ◽  
W.N.D. Sastafiana ◽  
V. Van linden ◽  
E.I.P. Volcke ◽  
T. Schaubroeck
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Land Application ◽  
Pig Manure ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Manure Treatment

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Apparel Consumption in Australia

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-111
Author(s):  
Shadia Moazzem ◽  
Enda Crossin ◽  
Fugen Daver ◽  
Lijing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Land Occupation ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This study presents the environmental impact of apparel consumption in Australia using life cycle assessment methodology according to ISO14040/14044:2006. Available published references, the Ecoinvent v3 dataset, the Australian life cycle assessment dataset and apparel country-wise import data with the breakdown of apparel type and fibre type were used in this study. The environmental impact assessment results of the functional unit were scaled up to the total apparel consumption. The impact results were also normalized on a per-capita/year basis. The Total Climate Change Potential (CCP) impact from apparel consumption of 2015 was estimated to be 16 607 028 tonnes CO2eq and 698.07 kg CO2eq/per capita-year. This study also assessed the impact of acidification potential (AP), water depletion (WD), abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP) - fossil fuel and agricultural land occupation (ALO) using the same methodology. The market volume of cotton apparel in Australia is 53.97 %, which accounts for 45 %, 96 %, 40 %, 46 % and 79 % of total CCP, WD, ADP, AP and ALO impact, respectively. Apparel broad categories of cotton shirt, cotton trouser, polyester shirt and polyester trouser have a high volume in the apparel market as well as a high environmental impact contribution. These high-volume apparel products can be included in the prioritization list to reduce environmental impact throughout the apparel supply chain. It was estimated that from 2010 to 2018 the per capita apparel consumption and corresponding impact increased by 24 %.

scholarly journals Eco-Investments - Life Cycle Assessment of Different Scenarios of Biomass Combustion

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Nitkiewicz ◽  
Agnieszka Ociepa-Kubicka
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Biomass Combustion ◽  
Steam Boiler ◽  
Land Occupation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Natural Land

Abstract The article presents the results of life cycle assessment of different scenarios of biomass use to produce energy in a selected company. The study is made on the case of Lesaffre Polska S.A. and its facility in Wolczyn which is one of the most modern biomass plants in Central Europe. The company is one of the leaders of using the environmental criteria in its strategic decision-making. Its goal is to avoid any waste and to form its own circular business system. One of its recent investments is a biomass fired steam boiler that uses agricultural and woody biomass to produce energy. Previously, biomass was sold to power plant and co-fired with coal. The scope of the paper is to assess the actual change in the environmental impact of biomass use in the Wolczyn facility. For that purpose, the life cycle assessment is used with the ReCiPe endpoint indicator. The assessment is based on the comparison of two scenarios: one assuming the biomass combustion in a new boiler, and the second one, assuming co-firing biomass with coal. The results of the study show that the investment is making a significant difference as far as the overall environmental impact is. Through avoiding the co-firing related emissions the company makes a big step ahead towards the decrease of their environmental impacts. The analysis shows that the significant impact in the co-firing scenario is posed in such categories as fossil depletion, climate change with impacts on human health and on ecosystems, particulate matter formation and agricultural land occupation. In the biomass combustion scenario, the above categories are complemented with metal depletion, natural land transformation, urban land occupation and human toxicity categories but with 4 times decrease of the overall impact. The study also shows that the change of the combustion system makes the most significant difference, while all the other factors, like biomass cultivation and processing, biomass transport have much lesser impact.

Life cycle assessment of carbon capture and storage/utilization: From current state to future research directions and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 103309
Author(s):  
Tatiane Tobias da Cruz ◽  
José A. Perrella Balestieri ◽  
João M. de Toledo Silva ◽  
Mateus R.N. Vilanova ◽  
Otávio J. Oliveira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Current State ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
And Storage

scholarly journals Process simulation and gate-to-gate life cycle assessment of hydrometallurgical refractory gold concentrate processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heini Elomaa ◽  
Pia Sinisalo ◽  
Lotta Rintala ◽  
Jari Aromaa ◽  
Mari Lundström
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Process Simulation ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Gold Recovery ◽  
Pressure Oxidation ◽  
Refractory Gold

Abstract Purpose Currently, almost all cyanide-free gold leaching processes are still in the development stage. Proactively investigating their environmental impacts prior to commercialization is of utmost importance. In this study, a detailed refractory gold concentrate process simulation with mass and energy balance was built for state-of-the-art technology with (i) pressure oxidation followed by cyanidation and, compared to alternative cyanide-free technology, with (ii) pressure oxidation followed by halogen leaching. Subsequently, the simulated mass balance was used as life cycle inventory data in order to evaluate the environmental impacts of the predominant cyanidation process and a cyanide-free alternative. Methods The environmental indicators for each scenario are based on the mass balance produced with HSC Sim steady-state simulation. The simulated mass balances were evaluated to identify the challenges in used technologies. The HSC Sim software is compatible with the GaBi LCA software, where LCI data from HSC-Sim is directly exported to. The simulation produces a consistent life cycle inventory (LCI). In GaBi LCA software, the environmental indicators of global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), terrestrial eutrophication potential (EP), and water depletion (Water) are estimated. Results and discussion The life cycle assessment revealed that the GWP for cyanidation was 10.1 t CO2-e/kg Au, whereas the halogen process indicated a slightly higher GWP of 12.6 t CO2-e/kg Au. The difference is partially explained by the fact that the footprint is calculated against produced units of Au; total recovery by the halogen leaching route for gold was only 87.3%, whereas the cyanidation route could extract as much as 98.5% of gold. The addition of a second gold recovery unit to extract gold also from the washing water in the halogen process increased gold recovery up to 98.5%, decreasing the GWP of the halogen process to 11.5 t CO2-e/kg Au. However, both evaluated halogen processing scenarios indicated a slightly higher global warming potential when compared to the dominating cyanidation technology. Conclusions The estimated environmental impacts predict that the development-stage cyanide-free process still has some challenges compared to cyanidation; as in the investigated scenarios, the environmental impacts were generally higher for halogen leaching. Further process improvements, for example in the form of decreased moisture in the feed for halide leaching, and the adaptation of in situ gold recovery practices in chloride leaching may give the cyanide-free processing options a competitive edge.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment between Ordinary Gypsum Plasterboard and Functional Phase-Change Gypsum Plasterboard

2020 ◽  
Vol 993 ◽  
pp. 1473-1480
Author(s):  
Yan Jiao Zhang ◽  
Li Ping Ma ◽  
Shi Wei Ren ◽  
Meng Chi Huang ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Phase Change ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Main Stage ◽  
Depletion Potential

With the emphasis of national policies on green manufacturing and the recognition of the people for green development, expanding the green assessment of products will be the general trend. In this study the life cycle assessment method was used to compile a list of resources, energy consumption and pollutant emissions during the life cycle of typical ordinary gypsum plasterboard and functional phase-change gypsum plasterboard, the key environmental impact indicators of both products during the life cycle calculated, the key stages affecting the environmental performance of products analyzed and identified, and the difference in environmental impacts between phase-change gypsum plasterboard and ordinary gypsum plasterboard compared and analyzed, for guiding the selection of green building materials and the development of ecological building materials. The results show that the global warming potential of phase-change gypsum plasterboard is 3.42 kgCO2 equivalent/m2, the non-renewable resource depletion potential is 2.25×10-5 kgSb equivalent/m2, the respiratory inorganic is 1.97×10-3 kgPM2.5 equivalent/m2, the eutrophication is 1.21×10-3 kgPO43- equivalent/m2, and the acidification is 9.47×10-3 kgSO2 equivalent/m2. Compared with ordinary gypsum plasterboard, the phase-change gypsum plasterboard shows the biggest increase by 874.03% in non-renewable resource depletion potential. The major environmental impact of ordinary gypsum plasterboard in the life cycle is mainly from energy use, and the transport process is the main stage of eutrophication. The use of phase-change materials in the phase-change gypsum plasterboard is the main stage causing environmental impact.

Recent Developments on Life Cycle Assessment of Building Materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 993 ◽  
pp. 1534-1544
Author(s):  
Ning Liu ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Xian Zheng Gong ◽  
Li Wei Hao ◽  
Feng Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Glass Ceramics ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Ecological Design ◽  
Lca Case Studies ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Production Technologies ◽  
Green Manufacture

In recent years, the building materials industry in China has made great progress in the R&D of energy conservation, emission reduction and cleaner production technologies, in order to implement sustainable development policy. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the mainstream method to analyze the environmental impact of product during its life cycle, which plays an important role on ecological design of building materials and development of green manufacture technology in recent year. This paper reviewed the LCA studies of building materials. Firstly, the development of China's building materials industry and technical framework of LCA standardized by ISO14040/14044 were introduced. Moreover, the typical LCA case studies of cement, glass, ceramics, wall materials, insulation materials and other building materials were reviewed. At last, some prospects for future research and development in this field were put forward.

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