Life cycle design and efficiency strategy for sustainable membrane technology

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an assessment tool to evaluate the potential environmental impact of a system or product throughout its life cycle. Results from LCA provides an insight on developing a more sustainable system while identifying its environmental hotspots. With recent advancements in membrane treatment systems especially for wastewater treatment (WWT), there is a rising interest in its sustainability aspect. Thus, it is crucial to review on previous published studies to highlight the challenges and achievements in implementing LCA for the membrane system. Hence, this paper presents a review of 33 recent papers published from year 2017-2020 conducting LCA on membrane systems for WWT. Bounded by the key frameworks of ISO standards, the analysis of papers showed variance in defining its functional unit, system boundaries, impact assessment categories and method to evaluate LCA, which makes it a challenge to do comparison. Some of the challenges discussed and highlighted in this paper include the inconsistencies in specifying the impact assessment and methodology used for some journals and the lack of LCA study in certain regional areas. A more uniform implementation of LCA should be considered to ensure the reliability and reproducibility of results to allow adoptions on novel or existing membrane systems.

An Approach for Identifying and Customizing the Effective Ecodesign Tools for Environmentally Sustainable Product Development

Producing environmentally benign products has now become one of the key challenges of companies across the globe. It can be achieved by utilizing the ecodesign tools in product development process for reducing the environmental impact of products during the design stage itself. Although, the ecodesign tools are available in abundance but there is a lack of studies that can help companies to identify suitable tools. A novel approach has been developed in this study which assists companies to identify and adopt effective ecodesign tools. In this study, three companies related to different product categories are included for testing the proposed approach. Results show that ‘Ecodesign Checklist,’ ‘Material, Energy, Toxicity (MET) Matrix’ and ‘Life Cycle Design Strategy (LiDS) Wheel’ are the three most effective ecodesign tools among the tested tools. Also, it is realized that if these three ecodesign tools are customized and integrated together in a specific sequence then it can be used by the designers, especially novice designers, as an ecodesign methodology. This methodology has the potential to guide designers in the form of a step by step approach during environmentally conscious product development.

DESIGN STAGE IN THE LIFE CYCLE OF AN OPTICAL DEVICE

Any product, including optical devices, during its existence goes through a series of states from the idea of creation to disposal, which is called the product life cycle. Design is a complex and creative process of a specialist (designer), invariant to various types and complexity of devices. Designing requires the designer to in addition to special, subject-specific knowledge, as well as knowledge of the methodology, tools and rules for the implementation of project procedures. Modern design of optical devices is carried out in a software environment, the so-called the system of information support of the product life cycle, which makes it necessary for students to master the appropriate software.

Proactive Management Transportation Logistics Infrastructure Life-Cycle (Digital Transformation)

The paper considers an innovative approach to life-cycle management of transportation-logistical infrastructure, basing on proactive management concept. It recommends new processes, providing for sustainability and adaptation of complex organisational-technical objects in digital transformation of Industry 4.0. Highly-effective infrastructure is based on coordinated interaction of enterprises at different stages of the life-cycle «design – operation – monitoring and correction».