Environmental and economic assessment of the formic acid electrochemical manufacture using carbon dioxide: Influence of the electrode lifetime

This paper focuses on the study of the environmental and economic feasibility of the formic acid (FA) synthesis by means of electrochemical reduction (ER) of carbon dioxide (CO2) with special emphasis on the cathode lifetime. The study has used a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach in order to obtain the environmental indicators as Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Abiotic Depletion (ADP) (both elements and fossil resources ADPs). The values of the indicators obtained in the assessment were representative of the Carbon Footprint (CF) and resource savings of this fabrication process. The commercial/conventional process for FA production was used as benchmark. The novelty of the study is the incorporation into the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of those materials and chemicals that are used in the fabrication of an ER cell, and in particular in the cathode. Hence, the lifetime of the cathode was used as a main parameter. The results obtained for a baseline case demonstrated that cathode lifetimes over 210 h would be enough to neglect the influence of the cathode fabrication from an environmental perspective. A first approach to the utility costs of CO2 ER process was also proposed in the study. Cost of utilities ranged between 0.16 € kg and 1.40 € kg-1 of FA in an ER process compared with 0.21 € kg-1 and 0.43 € kg-1 of FA in the conventional process depending on the market prices. This study demonstrated that the ER-based process could be competitive under future conditions if a reasonable electrocatalytic performance (in terms of cell voltage, current density, and faradaic efficiency) is achieved within a reasonable medium or long-term horizon. The results obtained aim to provide useful insights for decision-makers on the future developments within a decarbonized chemical industry.Authors thank to Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) for the financial support through the project CTQ2016-76231-C2-1-R. We would like also to thank MINECO for providing Marta Rumayor with a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral contract (FJCI-2015-23658)

Environmental sustainability assessment of ready-made baby foods: Meals, menus and diets

Although there is a growing body of literature on the environmental impacts of food, virtually none of the studies has addressed baby foods. Therefore, this work explored the life cycle environmental impacts of different ready-made baby foods, both at the level of individual meals and their combinations within a weekly menu. Twelve different meals were considered, based on baby food products available on the UK market, spanning breakfast, lunch and dessert. Menus following four different diets – omnivorous, vegetarian, pescatarian and dairy-free – were also evaluated. The results showed that, on average, lunch meals had the highest impacts and desserts the lowest. Breakfast has either intermediate (wet porridge) or low (dry porridge) impacts. Among the lunch meals, spaghetti Bolognese and salmon risotto had the highest impacts and among the desserts, strawberry, raspberry and banana as well as apple, pear and banana purees had the lowest. The key hotspots across the meals were raw materials and packaging. Meals with more meat and cream were found to have higher impacts. Manufacturing also played a significant role for global warming potential as well as depletion of fossil resources and the ozone layer due to the fossil fuels used in the process. When the impacts were analysed per mass of baby food consumed weekly, the dairy-free diet had higher impacts than the other three, but the difference among them was relatively small. The trends changed when nutritional value was taken into account, with the dairy-free diet exhibiting considerably higher impacts per unit of energy content. In that case, the pescatarian diet became the best option for most impacts. There was little difference between the omnivore and vegetarian diets. It is expected that these results will be of interest to baby food manufacturers and consumers, helping them to make more informed manufacturing and purchasing decisions

Ganzheitliche Bilanzierung von Stahlverbundbrücken

In diesem Beitrag wird der Schwerpunkt vor allem auf die Anwendung von modellgestützten Berechnungsmethoden (insbesondere unter Anwendung der Lebenszykluskostenrechnung, Ökobilanzierung und externen Kostenrechnung) gelegt, da die Ergebnisse von Planern und Entscheidern als Vergleichswerte verwendet werden und auf diese Weise die wichtigsten Beeinflussungshebel identifiziert werden können

Bio-Inspired Sustainability Assessment for Building Product Development—Concept and Case Study

Technological advancement culminating in a globalized economy has brought tremendous improvements for mankind in manifold respects but comes at the cost of alienation from nature. Human activities nowadays are unsustainable and cause severe damage especially in terms of global depletion and destabilization of natural systems but also harm its own social resources. In this paper, a sustainability assessment method is developed based on a bio-inspired sustainability framework that has been developed in the project TRR 141-C01 “The biomimetic promise.” It is aims at regaining the advantages of societal embeddedness in its environment through biological inspiration. The method is developed using a structured approach including requirement specification, description of the inventory models on bio-inspiration and sustainability assessment, creation of a bio-inspired sustainability assessment model and its validation. It is defined as an accompanying assessment for decision support, using a six-fold two-dimensional structure of social, economic and environmental functions and burdens. The method is applied and validated in 6 projects of TRR 141 and its applicability is exemplarily shown by the assessment of “Bio-flexi”, a biobased and biodegradable natural fiber reinforced plastic composite for indoor cladding applications. Based on the findings of the application the assessment method itself is proposed to be advanced towards an adaptive structure and a consequent outlook is provided