Abstract
In this report, the environmental aspects of producing proton conducting ceramics are investigated by means of the environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. The proton conducting ceramics BaZr0.8Y0.2O3-δ (BZY), BaCe0.9Y0.1O2.95 (BCY10), and Sr(Ce0.9Zr0.1)0.95Yb0.05O3-δ (SCZY) were prepared by the sol-gel process. Their material requirements and environmental emissions were inventoried, and their energy requirements were determined, based on actual production data. This latter point makes the present LCA especially worthy of attention as a preliminary indication of future environmental impact. The analysis was performed according to the recommendations of ISO norms 14040 and obtained using the Gabi 6 software. The performance of the analyzed samples was also compared with each other. The LCA results for these proton conducting ceramics production processes indicated that the marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential (MAETP) made up the largest part, followed by fresh-water aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP) and Human Toxicity Potential (HTP). The largest contribution was from energy consumption during annealing and calcinations steps.
Highlights
A large number of proton conducting ceramics based on SrCeO3, BaCeO3 have been developed for many applications [1]
This paper aims to present the main results of an Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) applied to the synthesis of proton conducting ceramics (BZY20, BCY10, SCZY) by the sol-gel method, focusing on the main environmental problems of ceramic production, and the opportunities for improvement derived from this analysis
The graphs show that the normalized impact is similar for all three samples in terms of marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential (MAETP) made up the largest part among the tem environmental impact categories followed by fresh-water aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP) and Human Toxicity Potential (HTP)
Summary
A large number of proton conducting ceramics based on SrCeO3, BaCeO3 have been developed for many applications [1]. These peroveskite-type oxides are used as solid membranes, in hydrogen sensors and as electrode materials for fuel cells [2], because of their appreciable proton and electronic conductivities [3]. The most widely used synthesissynthetic techniques for these materials have been solid state reaction and sol-gel methods. Solid state processes require high temperature and small particle sizes and have difficulty producing homogeneous composites. The sol-gel method can produce high purity materials with good homogeneity at low temperatures [4], but it can be expensive relative to the solid-state reaction approach. To data few studies have made a life cycle assessment of the sol-gel process
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