Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Technology & Society Lab (TSL), Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 ST. GALLEN, Switzerland.
Sci Total Environ. 2012 May 15;425:271-82. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.03.001. Epub 2012 Apr 6.
The use of engineered nanomaterials offers advantages as well as disadvantages from a sustainability perspective. It is important to identify such points as early as possible in order to be able to build on existing strengths, while counteracting disadvantages. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a suitable method to assess the environmental performance of a product or process. But so far studies applying LCA to the area of nanotechnology have been scarce. One reason might be that the LCA framework has a whole list of issues that need further precision in order to be applicable to nanotechnologies: system boundaries and a functional unit have to be chosen in a way that allows one to do a comparison of equal functionalities; adequate and comprehensive life cycle inventory data for engineered nanomaterials are the key on the level of inventory analysis; and the impact assessment step requires a clear definition of the degree of detail on the level of nanoparticle emissions. The LCA studies existing thus far in the area of nanotechnology have barely begun to cover all these aspects. Thus, in order to improve the current situation, the authors propose to go ahead in each of the LCA stages as far as scientific advances allow. For the inventory modelling this means e.g. that comprehensive, transparently documented and quality ensured data of the most important engineered nanomaterials should be collected and made available in a widely-accepted format. Concerning nanoparticle emissions, as many parameters as possible have to be collected pertaining to the production, use, and the disposal phase of these engineered nanomaterials. Furthermore, on the level of impact assessment, relevant physical characteristics have to be identified for a toxicity assessment of nanoparticles and a consensus has to be found for a limited but sufficient number of independent parameters influencing toxicity to be collected.
从可持续性的角度来看，工程纳米材料的使用既有优势也有劣势。尽早确定这些优势和劣势是很重要的，以便能够在利用现有优势的同时，克服劣势。生命周期评估（LCA）是评估产品或工艺环境性能的一种合适方法。但是，迄今为止，将 LCA 应用于纳米技术领域的研究还很少。原因之一可能是 LCA 框架有一系列需要进一步精确的问题，以便能够应用于纳米技术：系统边界和功能单位必须以允许比较同等功能的方式选择；对于工程纳米材料，充足和全面的生命周期清单数据是清单分析层面的关键；而影响评估步骤需要明确定义纳米颗粒排放水平的详细程度。迄今为止，纳米技术领域的 LCA 研究几乎还没有开始涵盖所有这些方面。因此，为了改善当前的情况，作者建议在每个 LCA 阶段都尽可能地推进，只要科学进步允许。对于清单建模，这意味着例如，应收集和以广泛接受的格式提供最重要的工程纳米材料的全面、透明记录和质量保证数据。关于纳米颗粒排放，必须收集与这些工程纳米材料的生产、使用和处置阶段相关的尽可能多的参数。此外，在影响评估层面，必须确定纳米颗粒毒性评估的相关物理特性，并就收集影响毒性的有限但足够数量的独立参数达成共识。
