Life Cycle Assessment of a Reflective Foil Material and Comparison With Other Solutions for Thermal Insulation of Buildings

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Desideri ◽  
S. Proietti ◽  
F. Zepparelli ◽  
P. Sdringola ◽  
E. Cenci
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Production Phase ◽  
Reflective Foil

In the last twenty years, the exploitation of non-renewable resources and the effects of their applications on environment and human health were considered central topics in political and scientific debate on European and worldwide scale. This kind of resources have been used in different sectors, as energy systems, technological research, but also in private/public buildings and production of consumer goods, involving significantly domestic and ordinary life of every human being. Studies about the effect of this exploitation carried out discouraging results, in terms of climate changes and energy sustenance; this determined a progressive approach process to a new concept of development, able to couple the qualitative standard of modern life with the respect of planet and its inhabitants. Starting from this reflection, scientific community moved towards research on alternative resources and developed a new way to conceive planning process and technical innovations, in order to exploit renewable energies and recycled materials, promote energy savings and reduce environmental pollution. In this context the present paper aims at evaluating benefits relating to different solutions of thermal insulation in building envelope. In fact a high grade of insulation ensures better comfort conditions in inner spaces, reducing energy consumptions due to heating and cooling conditioning. The paper presents the results of a detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the reflective foil ISOLIVING, conceived and produced by an Italian company. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology allows to consider all stages of the life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to the product’s disposal, in an optics “from cradle to grave.” In particular, the study takes into account the production phase of the reflective foil ISOLIVING, the installation phase, the transport of all components to the production site and also the end of life scenario of the material. The possibility to collect many detailed information about the production phase adds value to the study. The analysis is carried out according to UNI EN ISO 14040 and UNI EN ISO 14044, which regulate the LCA procedure. The LCA modeling was performed using SimaPro software application. The results of the analysis allow to make an important comparison concerning the environmental performances, between the reflective foil ISOLIVING and other types of insulating materials.

scholarly journals Carbon Emissions of China’s Cement Packaging: Life Cycle Assessment

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5554
Author(s):  
Xiaowei Ma ◽  
Chuandong Li ◽  
Bin Li
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
New Materials ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Production Phase ◽  
Plastic Composite ◽  
The Government

China is the largest producer of cement in the world. With this tremendous production of cement, the extensively used cement packaging embodies significant carbon dioxide emissions. However, this has scarcely been investigated. This paper presents the first investigation into three types of cement packaging in China using the life cycle assessment methodology. The carbon dioxide emissions in each production phase of cement packaging were calculated and compared to the emissions in the western, middle, and eastern regions in China. The results show that in the production phase, the consumption of electricity accounted for the highest proportion of total carbon dioxide emissions (23.39–35.14%), followed by the consumption of polypropylene-based material (23.39%). From a packaging perspective, laminated plastic woven bags emitted the most carbon dioxide (0.637 kg/bag), followed by paper–plastic composite bags (0.536 kg/bag) and paper bags (0.022 kg/bag). In regional terms, the western region emitted the most carbon dioxide (3.06 million tons) compared with the eastern (2.01 million tons) and middle (1.81 million tons) regions due to the low bulk rate. Our findings indicate that using paper–plastic composite bags instead of laminated plastic woven bags and using recycled materials instead of new materials in certain production phases can considerably reduce the environmental impacts of cement packaging. The government should encourage the use of non-coal energy power generation for the production phase. Further improvements could focus on the use of bulk cement instead of packaged cement.

Life Cycle Assessment of Rock Wool Board and EPS Board

2014 ◽  
Vol 787 ◽  
pp. 106-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhu Li ◽  
Xian Zheng Gong ◽  
Zhi Hong Wang ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Li Ping Ma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Outer Wall ◽  
Effective Measure ◽  
Insulation Materials ◽  
Result Show ◽  
Rock Wool

Although outer wall thermal insulation technology is an effective measure for building energy-saving, the production of thermal insulation materials causes serious impacts on environment. In the present investigation the resource, energy consumption and environmental emission of the two kinds of thermal insulation materials were analyzed, from the acquisition of raw materials to production process based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The result show that life cycle energy consumption of rock wool board is 415MJ per functional unit, proximately twice of EPS board’s (220MJ). Overall, environmental impact indicators caused by rock wool board is more serious than EPS.

scholarly journals Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Thermal Insulation Tiles for Flat Roofs

Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raul Gomes ◽  
José D. Silvestre ◽  
Jorge de Brito
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Environmental Costs ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Life Cycle Stages ◽  
Cradle To Gate ◽  
Flat Roofs

Envelope insulation and protection is an important technical solution to reduce energy consumption, exterior damage, and environmental impacts in buildings. Thermal insulation tiles are used simultaneously as thermal insulation of the building envelope and protection material of under layers in flat roofs systems. The purpose of this research is to assess the environmental impacts of the life cycle of thermal insulation tiles for flat roofs. This research presents the up-to-date “cradle to gate” environmental performance of thermal insulation tiles for the environmental categories and life-cycle stages defined in European standards on environmental evaluation of building. The results presented in this research were based on site-specific data from a Portuguese factory and resulted from a consistent methodology that is here fully described, including the raw materials extraction and production, and the modelling of energy and transport processes at the production stage of thermal insulation tiles. These results reflect the weight of the raw-materials within the production process of thermal insulation tiles in all environmental categories and show that some life cycle stages, such as transportation of raw materials (A2) and packaging and packaging waste (A3.1 and A3.3, respectively), may not be discarded in a cradle to gate study of a construction material because they can make a significant contribution to some environmental categories. Moreover, complementary results regarding the economic, environmental, and energy performance Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of flat roofs solutions incorporating the thermal insulation tiles studied showed that the influence of the economic costs on the total aggregated costs of these solutions is much higher than that of the environmental costs due to the lower environmental costs of the thermal insulation tiles at the product stage (A1–A3). These costs influenced the corresponding percentage of the environmental costs (between 14% and 18%) and the percentage of the economic costs (between 70% and 75%) in the total aggregated (environmental, economic, and energy) net present value (NPV). Finally, a complementary “cradle to cradle” environmental LCA discussion is presented including the following additional life cycle stages: maintenance and replacement (B2–B4), operational energy use (B6), and end-of-life stage and benefits and loads beyond the system boundary (C1–C4 and D).

scholarly journals 2-Piece Cork Stoppers as Alternative for Valorization of Thin Cork Planks: Analysis by LCA Methodology

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 873
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier Flor-Montalvo ◽  
Agustín Sánchez-Toledo Ledesma ◽  
Eduardo Martínez Cámara ◽  
Emilio Jiménez-Macías ◽  
Jorge Luis García-Alcaraz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Lca Methodology ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Thickness ◽  
Cork Stoppers ◽  
Wine Bottle

Natural stoppers are a magnificent closure for the production of aging wines and unique wines, whose application is limited by the availability of raw materials and more specifically of cork sheets of different thickness and quality. The growing demand for quality wine bottle closures leads to the search for alternative stopper production. The two-piece stopper is an alternative since it uses non-usable plates in a conventional way for the production of quality caps. The present study has analyzed the impact of the manufacture of these two-piece stoppers using different methodologies and for different dimensions by developing an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), concluding that the process phases of the plate, its boiling, and its stabilization, are the phases with the greatest impact. Likewise, it is detected that the impacts in all phases are relatively similar (for one kg of net cork produced), although the volumetric difference between these stoppers represents a significant difference in impacts for each unit produced.

scholarly journals Global Warming Impacts Study of Tofu Products in Mampang Prapatan Small and Medium Enterprises with Life Cycle Assessment Methods

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayu Sukmana ◽  
Isti Surjandari ◽  
Muryanto . ◽  
Arief A. R. Setiawan ◽  
Edi Iswanto Wiloso
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Small And Medium Enterprises ◽  
Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽  
Fuel Wood ◽  
Medium Enterprises ◽  
The Impact

Firstly global warming issue caused by greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) which comes from human activities. Along with increasing of daily need, that humans of activities food produce is also increase, include of tofu. Tofu is a traditional Indonesian specialty made from soybeans and used as a side dish. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of global warming from tofu products on Mampang Prapatan's Small Tofu and Medium Enterprises. The method used in this study is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method with the help of Simapro 8.4 software with a 1 kg tofu functional unit. The data collected in this study is the average data of tofu production for 3 months, namely January - March 2018. The LCA data in this study include the process of soybean cultivation, transportation processes for shipping soybeans, water, fuel wood, and electricity use. The limitations of this study are from cradle (soybean cultivation) to gate (tofu products).The results showed that UKM Mampang Prapatan has the potential impact of global warming with a value of 3.84 kg CO2-eq, while the value of global warming in the production process knows the scenario of wastewater treatment and the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as fuel for boiling pulp 4.49 kg CO2-eq soybeans. Based on the results of this study, greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions are issued; the intervention that can be done is to optimize the use of raw materials for production to reduce the impact of CO2-eq kg global warming.

scholarly journals Determination of Optimum Envelope of Religious Buildings in Terms of Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption: Mosque Cases

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (20) ◽  
pp. 6597
Author(s):  
Ahmet Bircan Atmaca ◽  
Gülay Zorer Gedik ◽  
Andreas Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Properties ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Gain Factor ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Comfort Level ◽  
Humid Climate ◽  
Savings Rate

Mosques are quite different from other building types in terms of occupant type and usage schedule. For this reason, they should be evaluated differently from other building types in terms of thermal comfort and energy consumption. It is difficult and probably not even necessary to create homogeneous thermal comfort in mosques’ entire usage area, which has large volumes and various areas for different activities. Nevertheless, energy consumption should be at a minimum level. In order to ensure that mosques are minimally affected by outdoor climatic changes, the improvement of the properties of the building envelope should have the highest priority. These optimal properties of the building envelope have to be in line with thermal comfort in mosques. The proposed method will be a guide for designers and occupants in the design process of new mosques or the use of existing mosques. The effect of the thermal properties of the building envelope on energy consumption was investigated to ensure optimum energy consumption together with an acceptable thermal comfort level. For this purpose, a parametric simulation study of the mosques was conducted by varying optical and thermal properties of the building envelope for a temperature humid climate zone. The simulation results were analyzed and evaluated according to current standards, and an appropriate envelope was determined. The results show that thermal insulation improvements in the roof dome of buildings with a large volume contributed more to energy savings than in walls and foundations. The use of double or triple glazing in transparent areas is an issue that should be considered together with the solar energy gain factor. Additionally, an increasing thickness of thermal insulation in the building envelope contributed positively to energy savings. However, the energy savings rate decreased after a certain thickness. The proposed building envelope achieved a 33% energy savings compared to the base scenario.

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