Mazzi Anna, Sciarrone Michela, Bernardo Enrico
University of Padova, Department of Industrial Engineering, via Marzolo 9, 35131, Padova, Italy.
Heliyon. 2023 Aug 6;9(8):e19001. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19001. eCollection 2023 Aug.
Glass foams is an interesting option for the use of fractions of glass cullet otherwise destined to landfills. As building insulation materials, glass foams obtained by conventional processes have still some drawbacks in the purity of starting feedstock, which can be avoided by implementing an alkali activation process. Using the life cycle assessment methodology, the research analyses the potential impacts associated to the glass foam obtained from waste glass through the alkali activation in a laboratory scale plant with 'cradle to grave' perspective. The main phases included in the system boundaries are the downstream activities related to the transportation of glass waste and avoided landfill disposal, the production process to obtain the glass foam, and the upstream activities related to the transportation to potential use phase and the end of life. The life cycle environmental profile of glass foam is calculated starting from primary data integrated with the Ecoinvent database, and using the ReCiPe 2016 impact assessment method and the SimaPro software. Results demonstrate the greatest contribution on the overall environmental impacts due to the production, in which the main impacts are linked to electricity consumption for drying and firing and surfactant for the foaming. Sensitivity analyses clarify that consistent improvement in overall environmental impacts can be obtain with minimization of distances both between glass waste and production site, and between glass foam production and use; otherwise, different energy-mix and lower temperature in chemical processes have negligible effects in the environmental profile. The research reveals useful information to optimize the upcycling of glass foam production before moving on the industrialization: future investigations should involve the selection of biodegradable surfactants, from renewable sources.
玻璃泡沫是一种利用原本会被填埋的碎玻璃的有趣选择。作为建筑保温材料，通过传统工艺获得的玻璃泡沫在起始原料的纯度方面仍存在一些缺点，而通过实施碱活化工艺可以避免这些缺点。本研究采用生命周期评估方法，从“摇篮到坟墓”的角度，分析了在实验室规模的工厂中通过碱活化从废玻璃中获得的玻璃泡沫所产生的潜在影响。系统边界中包括的主要阶段是与玻璃废料运输和避免填埋处置相关的下游活动、获得玻璃泡沫的生产过程，以及与运输到潜在使用阶段和使用寿命结束相关的上游活动。玻璃泡沫的生命周期环境概况是根据与Ecoinvent数据库整合的原始数据，使用ReCiPe 2016影响评估方法和SimaPro软件计算得出的。结果表明，生产过程对总体环境影响的贡献最大，其中主要影响与干燥和烧制的电力消耗以及发泡用表面活性剂有关。敏感性分析表明，通过最小化玻璃废料与生产场地之间以及玻璃泡沫生产与使用之间的距离，可以在总体环境影响方面取得显著改善；否则，不同的能源组合和化学过程中较低的温度对环境概况的影响可以忽略不计。该研究揭示了在玻璃泡沫生产工业化之前优化其升级回收的有用信息：未来的研究应包括选择来自可再生资源的可生物降解表面活性剂。
