Foundry Sand Source Reduction Options: Life Cycle Assessment Evaluation

Samuel Ghormley,Bruce Dvorak,Robert Williams

doi:10.3390/environments7090066

Samuel Ghormley, Bruce Dvorak + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/environments7090066

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Journal: Environments	Publication Date: Aug 29, 2020
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Abstract

Foundries represent a significant part of the world’s economy and are a large consumer of energy and producer of solid waste. Sand-handling processes can use 5–10% of a foundry’s total energy. The goal of this research was to explore source reduction and waste minimization at a foundry, using both economic and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques to compare three secondary sand-reclamation options. LCA software modeled all sand processes at a mid-sized ferrous foundry in the USA. The LCA showed all secondary reclamation technologies, while more energy intensive at the foundry, lowered life cycle environmental impacts, including GHG emissions, ecotoxicity, and human health indicators, due primarily to source reduction and corresponding reduction in transportation both from the virgin sand source and to the landfill. Varying transportation distance had a large impact on LCA results to the point where the life cycle benefit of secondary reclamation became a liability in a zero distance scenario. Varying electricity generation to favor greener sources was also examined, but proved to have minimal impact on the LCA results. This research suggests that the greatest reduction of life cycle impacts in the sand-handling processes for a foundry is to find a geographically closer source for virgin sand.

Highlights

Foundries represent a significant part of the world’s economy
After all of the aggregate models were created in Simapro, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) was reported by using the TRACI methodology
TheThe simple energy analysis performed for this research shows one particular resultresult for the impact, simple energy analysis performed for this research shows one particular forGHG

Summary

Introduction

Metal parts made in foundries are vital to the automotive industry, in construction projects, as end products, and as parts for larger equipment. Because foundries play such an integral role, it is imperative that they operate as efficiently as possible. The sand-handling processes account for 5–10% of the total energy used in a steel foundry [3] but contribute most of the solid waste generated. While there has been a large number of studies focused on sustainability of foundries on a facility-wide scale [4,5,6], there has been a much smaller amount performed on the sand-handling processes . Research was performed by using data collected from a mid-sized

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