PAPERmaking! Vol6 Nr1 2020

bioresources. com

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE

consumption, and adhesive production, and were mainly obtained from GaBi Thinkstep databases (Thinkstep, 2018) and other databases to cover some missing datasets such as Ecoinvent 3.5 (Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, 2018). Lignosulfonate product specific LCA reports were also available, and the data sources are summarized in Table 2. Table 2. Summary of Data Sources Category Material/Component Data LCI Source

Green Chips (50% water content)

GLO: Used wood, wood chips (50% H 2 O content) CN: Timber pine (10.7% H 2 O content)

Thinkstep

Solid Pine Timber

González- García (2011) Ecoinvent 3.5 World Steel association (2017) Thinkstep Ecoinvent 3.5

Ammonium Lignosulfonate

Lignin based phenolic material.

Hydrogen Peroxide (Aqueous 50 wt%)

RER: Hydrogen peroxide (50% H 2 O 2 )

Raw Materials

GLO: Steel welded pipe worldsteel

Metals

CN: Plastic foil (Polyethylene, PE) RER: Polyvinyl acetate (PVAC) RER: PUR dispersion adhesive CN: Wax / Paraffins at refinery from crude oil CN: Electricity from hard coal CN: Thermal energy from biomass (solid) CN: Transport, small truck (up to 14 t total cap., 9.3t payload) CN: Diesel mix at filling station

Plastic

Polyvinyl acetate adhesive

Polyurethane coating

Paraffin Emulsion

Electricity from Grid

Energy

Energy from Biomass Truck (4 ton to 5 ton) Truck (12 ton to 14 ton) Fuel for transportation

Thinkstep

Transportation

CN=China, GLO=Global, RER=Europe.

Life Cycle Impact Assessment In this study, the ReCiPe 1.08 Endpoint method and its impact categories were selected for evaluating the different types of damages over the entire life of the product (La Rosa et al. 2013). The three main damage categories were damage to human health (HH), damage to the ecosystem quality (EQ), and damage to resources (R). Damage to HH was shown as the number of years lived as disabled and the number of years of life lost; its unit was disability adjusted life years (DALYs). Damage to the EQ was shown as the loss of species within a given period, and its unit was species years (species·yr). Damage to R was shown as the surplus of energy for future resource integration (Rivela et al. 2007). This was helpful for highlighting the drawbacks of specific categories and the possible environmental benefits. When conventional MDF was replaced with HWC in the wardrobe products, it was essential to detect the hot spots and further demonstrate the observed impacts. The characterization step analyzed the contributions of different subsystems to the damage categories and sub-categories. The results of the characterization and damage assessment are shown in Tables 3 and 4.

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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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