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Description of the System The complete life cycle of manufacturing an HWC wardrobe from raw materials to production to delivery to the final user is illustrated in Fig. 2. The HWC wardrobe process chain was divided into the four following subsystems: raw materials supply, energy consumption, HWC wardrobe manufacturing, and transportation. The HWC wardrobe manufacturing stage was comprised of assembling, surface treatment, and packaging. During assembling, the HWCs were cut, shaped into a given size, and connected with each other, and then surface treatments, such as painting, were performed. Packaging was the last production step before the wardrobe was delivered. Energy consumption, such as heating, electricity, and water consumption, was also considered in the assessment process. All of the associated transportation processes in the life cycle, including waste disposal, were within the system boundaries. The use phase of furniture needed little energy input, and the maintenance data was out of reach; therefore, the use phase was excluded from the system boundary. Different scenarios of the end of life were considered during the sensitivity analysis.
RAW MATERIAL SUPPLY
ENERGY CONSUMPTION
HWC
HWC WARDROBE MANUFACTURING
Paperboards
Emission to Air Emission to Solid Emission to Water
Coating and Cutting
Metals
Drilling and Finishing
Plastics
Adhesives and Glues
100-kg HWC wardrobe
Assembling and Packing
Auxiliary Productions
Legend:
Transport
Fig. 2. System boundary and main processes for production of HWC wardrobes The raw materials supply stage included key materials (green chips and ammonium lignosulfonate) for the HWC, solid pine timber for paperboards, metals, plastics, and adhesives. Compared with conventional wardrobe, the main difference is the wooden composites. The green chips and ammonium lignosulfonate, as the primary materials of the HWC, were evaluated according to previous reports (Yuan and Guo 2017). The physical mechanical properties of HWC were superior to the furniture grade MDF of the Chinese standard GB/T 11718 (2009). The HWC was the primary integrating component of the wardrobe. The wardrobe was transported by truck from Hengyou Furniture Co. Ltd (Greater Khingan area, China) for an approximate distance of 200 km. The paperboards were used as a packaging material for one-layer corrugated boxes, which decreased the environmental impact and energy consumption by a large amount (Yi et al. 2017). Other components included metals, plastics, and adhesives, which were obtained from different suppliers in China. These components accounted for approximately 5.0% of the entire mass of the HWC wardrobe system.
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Li et al . (2019 ). “Wardrobe case study in China,” B io R esources 14(2), 2740-2758.
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