ESE-faculty-list July 28th Seminar: Industrial Ecologist Toolbox: Case studies on material flow analysis and life cycle assessment

[Lee, Linda S]

Dr. Amit Kapur Consultant with the Sustainable Lifecycle Engineering Global Technology Field at Siemens Corporate Research, Inc

Industrial Ecologist Toolbox: Case studies on material flow analysis and life cycle assessment
Date: July 28, 2011 Location
Potter 234, Fu Room Time: 10:30 am

Abstract. Industrial ecology is a nascent and challenging discipline for scientists, engineers and policy makers. Often termed the "science of sustainability"1, Industrial ecology offers a realm of methods and tools to analyze environmental challenges at various levels - process, product, facility, national, and global and then come up with responses to facilitate better understanding and provide suitable remedies. This paper discusses case studies on application of two important components of the Industrial ecologist toolbox: material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. Material flow analysis: A dynamic substance-flow model is also developed to characterize the stocks and flows of cement utilized during the twentieth century in the United States using the generic cement life cycle as a systems boundary. The motivation for estimating historical inventories of cement stocks and flows is to provide accurate estimates of contemporary cement in-use stocks in U.S. infrastructure and future discards to relevant stakeholders in U.S. infrastructure such as the federal highway administration, department of transportation, public and private utilities, and the construction and cement industries. The rate of addition of new stock and the repair of existing stock are key determinants of infrastructure sustainability. The dynamic model was based on three statistical lifetime distributions - Weibull, Gamma, and Lognormal for each cement end-use. The model-derived estimate of the 'in-use' cement stocks in United States indicate that 82-87 percent of cement utilized during the last century is still in use. On a per capita basis, this is equivalent to 14.3 - 15.0 metric tons of in-use cement stock per person. The in-use cement stock per capita has doubled over the last fifty years, although the rate of growth has slowed down. Life cycle assessment: A comparative life cycle assessment study was conducted to analyze the benefits of environmentally preferable institutional cleaning and personal care products over conventional products. The scope of the study was "cradle-to-grave," to encompass the energy and material resources required for the production of raw material and packaging components to use and final disposal of the product. The ReCiPe 2008 Midpoint (hierarchist perspective) impact assessment methodology was used. The comparative life cycle assessment performed in this study showed that the environmentally preferable products have significantly lower environmental impacts compared to typical alternatives in the market.

Faculty Candidate EEE/IE:
Dr. Amit Kapur Consultant with the Sustainable Lifecycle Engineering Global Technology Field at Siemens Corporate Research, Inc Industrial Ecologist Toolbox: Case studies on material flow analysis and life cycle assessment Date: July 28, 2011 Location: Potter 234, Fu Room Time: 10:30 am Abstract. Industrial ecology is a nascent and challenging discipline for scientists, engineers and policy makers. Often termed the "science of sustainability"1, Industrial ecology offers a realm of methods and tools to analyze environmental challenges at various levels - process, product, facility, national, and global and then come up with responses to facilitate better understanding and provide suitable remedies. This paper discusses case studies on application of two important components of the Industrial ecologist toolbox: material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. Material flow analysis: A dynamic substance-flow model is also developed to characterize the stocks and flows of cement utilized during the twentieth century in the United States using the generic cement life cycle as a systems boundary. The motivation for estimating historical inventories of cement stocks and flows is to provide accurate estimates of contemporary cement in-use stocks in U.S. infrastructure and future discards to relevant stakeholders in U.S. infrastructure such as the federal highway administration, department of transportation, public and private utilities, and the construction and cement industries. The rate of addition of new stock and the repair of existing stock are key determinants of infrastructure sustainability. The dynamic model was based on three statistical lifetime distributions - Weibull, Gamma, and Lognormal for each cement end-use. The model-derived estimate of the 'in-use' cement stocks in United States indicate that 82-87 percent of cement utilized during the last century is still in use. On a per capita basis, this is equivalent to 14.3 - 15.0 metric tons of in-use cement stock per person. The in-use cement stock per capita has doubled over the last fifty years, although the rate of growth has slowed down. Life cycle assessment: A comparative life cycle assessment study was conducted to analyze the benefits of environmentally preferable institutional cleaning and personal care products over conventional products. The scope of the study was "cradle-to-grave," to encompass the energy and material resources required for the production of raw material and packaging components to use and final disposal of the product. The ReCiPe 2008 Midpoint (hierarchist perspective) impact assessment methodology was used. The comparative life cycle assessment performed in this study showed that the environmentally preferable products have significantly lower environmental impacts compared to typical alternatives in the market. This reduced impact was on account of environmentally preferable products meeting 1 Graedel, TE (2000). Evolution of industrial ecology. Environmental Science and Technology34(1): 28A-31A

Linda S. Lee
Ecological Science & Engineering Interdisciplinary Graduate Program, Program Head
http://www.purdue.edu/dp/ese/
Professor, Environmental Chemistry, http://www.agry.purdue.edu/staffbio/lslbio.htm
Associate Head, Purdue University, Department of Agronomy
Crop Soil & Environmental Sciences
915 W. State Street, 3-363 Lilly Hall
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2054
Office: (765) 494-8612; Fax (765) 496-2926

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </ECN/mailman/archives/ese-faculty-list/attachments/20110725/6e660fe0/attachment-0001.html>