Environmental Impact and Life Cycle Assessment of Economically Optimized Thermal Insulation Materials for Different Climatic Region in Iraq

Murad Saeed Sedeeq,Shadan Kareem Ameen,Ali Bolatturk

doi:10.14419/ijet.v7i4.37.24094

Abstract

Environmental pollution is one of the biggest problems facing the world, even it is the most dangerous. Therefore, it becomes necessary to combine all efforts to reduce or eliminate it. Iraq is at the forefront of countries that suffer from major environmental problems. The present study aims to perform a comparative environmental assessment for three commonly available thermal insulation materials in Iraq namely expanded polystyrene (EPS), extruded polystyrene (XPS), and rock wool (RW) to select least environmental impact material. A cradle to gate life cycle assessment is performed to assess the environmental impact of each insulation material taking into account manufacturing, transportation, and installation and disposal stages. A life cycle assessment program SimaPro is used to model thermal insulation materials during its life cycle. A life cycle impact analysis method CML 2001 has been selected to assess the environmental aspects associated with two global damage categories as ozone layer depletion and global warming and two regional damage categories as acidification and eutrophication. Economically optimized amount of each insulation material is selected to represent the functional unit of life cycle assessment. The results illustrate that the EPS has the lower contribution in all environmental impact categories for all climatic regions. So, the EPS can be select as a proper thermal insulation material for the building sector from an economic and environmental perspective. The results of LCA are used to determine the amount of CO2 can be reduced per meter square of the exterior wall by using the economical amount of EPS during the lifetime of insulation material. The environmental impact results show that using EPS will contribute in CO2 emission reduction at about 81.5 % in all climatic regions in Iraq.

Highlights

Environmental pollution is one of the significant problems facing the world, even it is the most dangerous
2.2.1 Goal and Scope: The goal and scope of this study is to evaluate the life-cycle environmental impact of economically optimize thermal insulation for unit area of external building wall in each climatic region associated with two global impact categories (ODP) and (GWP) and two regional impact categories (AP) and (EP) which are the main impact categories at the local and world level
The graphical comparison between insulation materials according to their environmental impact is illustrated in Figures 1-3 for each impact category after assessing the environmental impact categories referred to the three thermal insulation materials with the specified functional unit of the economical optimized amount for 1m2 area of a thermal insulation material from cradle to grave

Summary

Introduction

Environmental pollution is one of the significant problems facing the world, even it is the most dangerous. The economic optimum insulation thickness in these studies determined as a function of different parameters like: building type , function, orientation, constriction materials property, climatic conditions, insulation material type, insulation material type cost, energy type, energy cost, interest rate, inflation rate, lifetime, and efficiency of air-conditioning system (Bolatturk, 2008; Kaynakli, 2012; Liu, et al, 2015; Nematchoua, et al, 2015; Wati, et al, 2015; Kurekci, 2016; Kameni Nematchoua, et al, 2017) The result of these studies helped the decision-makers in this field to determine the economic amount of different thermal insulation materials that will minimize the total LCC but did not distinguish the appropriate thermal insulation materials type which will contribute to reducing the environmental burden and did not compute the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be reduce by using these materials. This research is expected to fill the environment gap in the economic researches conducted in this subject to incentive the Iraqi society to use the economically optimized thermal insulation to raise the environmental quality level in Iraq especially and in the world generally

Methods

Results

Conclusion