Significant Impact Categories Research Articles

Implementasi Game Tebak Gambar Binatang Berbasis Android Sebagai Media Pembelajaran Anak Usia Dini

The increasingly rapid development of technology, especially mobile phone devices has targeted all groups, including young children aged 3 to 5 years, so like it or not,parents have to supervise their children. But in reality, technology cannot be avoided. As a parent, the most important thing right now is how to ensure that the mobile devices playing with children can be handled well and have a positive impact on their children, although supervision is still needed. Supervision of children who are already at school cannot be carried out continuously. At school, parents can only expect for the teachers as their second parents. Teachers as educators must be able to provide understanding to Kindergarten children, thus the use of cellphones can be used for positive things, one of which is by providing mobile game-based learning media. The problem is that there are only a few mobile applications in the form of games that provide simple learning media for Kindergarten children. Through this service, an Android-based educational game of animal picture guessing will be designed and developed as a learning medium for children aged 3-5 years. To determine the impact of implementing the application, implementation and testing were carried out, where the average System Usability Scale (SUS) score from 15 respondents was 88.33, and when referring to the usability scale value range it can be concluded that the animal picture guessing game that has been developed falls into the category acceptable or well accepted with a fairly significant impact category. Meanwhile the functionality also meets the needs of its users.

Environmental Assessment of Hydrothermal Treatment of Wet Bio-Residues from Forest-Based and Agro-Industries into Intermediate Bioenergy Carriers

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of low quality, wet biogenic residues into intermediate bioenergy carriers can potentially contribute to a more flexible and stable renewable energy system and reduce environmental impacts compared to current residue disposal practices. This study quantifies the environmental impacts via life cycle assessment (LCA) of a novel hydrothermal process for the treatment on an industrial scale of application of three wet biogenic residues (paper bio-sludge, olive pomace, and orange peel) into bioenergy carriers, i.e., solid pellets and biogas. A comprehensive attributional cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted; the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) utilised the ReCiPe impact assessment method. A selection of 10 significant impact categories was prioritised. Reliability of this categorization was also ensured through a sensitivity analysis carried out using Monte Carlo simulation. Climate change, particulate matter formation and terrestrial acidification impact categories showed the highest reliability, while for freshwater ecotoxicity and freshwater eutrophication impact categories in the study suggest the need for more robust data and further investigation. The climate change impact category presents the following values, as kg CO2eq/tresidue: pulp and paper bio-sludge (PPB), 17.9; olive pomace (OP), −1290; orange peel (ORP), −1301. The LCA study compared electricity yields of the hydrothermal treatment process with conventional treatment processes for each of the target residue streams. The environmental performance of the proposed hydrothermal treatment benefits significantly from the combination of intermediate bioenergy carriers (pellets) from the solid fraction with biogas production from the liquid fraction. Avoided emissions due to the heat recovery provide further environmental benefits. The LCIA results show that the carbon footprint of the F-CUBED production system, as kgCO2eq/kWhe, accounts for –4.56, −0.63, and −0.25 for paper bio-sludge, olive pomace and orange peel, respectively.

Life Cycle Assessment of Production of Hydrochar via Hydrothermal Carbonization of Date Palm Fronds Biomass.

This study presents novel life cycle assessment (LCA) findings on hydrochar production from Saudi-Arabia-based date palm fronds biomass waste using hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). The LCA procedure incorporated normalization, weighting, and improvement assessment. The system boundary encompassed water consumption and energy requirements within a lab setting representing a gate-to-gate process. The OpenLCA 1.11.0 software with the European Life Cycle Database 3.2 (ELCD 3.2) was utilized for the study and we employed the ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 and Environmental Footprint 3.0 (EF 3.0) impact assessment methods. The results indicated that fossil fuel usage represented the most significant impact category with the HTC and drying processes identified as major contributors. It was also observed that the HTC process exerted far greater detrimental impacts on the environment than the biomass grinding process. The overwhelming impact of fossil fuel resources could be mitigated by optimizing the batches of biomass or hydrochar samples in each operation, which could alleviate fossil fuel consumption by up to 94%. The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to mitigate the environmental burden and contribute to sustainable hydrochar production.

Life cycle impacts assessment of two gold extraction systems in Colombia: open-pit and alluvial mining

Gold mining has historically and significantly contributed to the Colombian economy. Gold extraction in Colombia is mainly done through two techniques: open-pit and alluvial mining. In this study, the environmental impacts of both these mining systems were analyzed using the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework, including identification of the system components that contribute most to impacts. Inventory data were obtained for two medium-scale mines in Colombia, one representing the open-pit method and the other the alluvial method. Environmental impacts were classified and characterized by mid-point impact categories and further aggregated into end-point indicators through the ReCiPe (v. 1.11) methodology, which uses a hierarchist perspective. Results for end-point indicators show that the open-pit mining presents higher values in the human health damage category, influenced primarily by tailings and by the excavation process. For the alluvial mining, the overall impacts were an order of magnitude lower, with ecosystem quality as the most significant contributor due to the stripping of soil and vegetation. In the case of mid-point indicators, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity contribute the most to open-pit mining, while for alluvial mining, metal depletion and natural land transformation contribute the most. Climate change is also a significant impact category for alluvial and open-pit mining. The is a substantial difference in environmental impacts between the two mining systems: the quantified total environmental impact was 1.0 × 1004 points for the open-pit mine and 2.4 × 1003 points for the alluvial mine. Since these mines represent specific Colombian operational conditions, this conclusion cannot be confidently extended to other operational contexts. For example, results in other cases may depend on the local geological features and natural environment conditions. Knowing the critical mining supply chain stages for environmental performance will allow the decision-makers to provide the tools for more sustainable extraction and production.

Environmental impact assessment of recycled HMA with RAP materials from the rotary decomposition process compared to virgin HMA and conventional recycled HMA

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is often utilized in asphalt concrete due to its significant environmental gains. This study focused on the environmental impact of recycled hot mix asphalt (HMA) with RAP materials from the rotary decomposition process compared to virgin HMA and conventional recycled HMA. SMA-13-, AC-16- and AC-20-type pavements were considered using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The energy consumption and air emissions at various phases were determined. Multiple impact categories, including the global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EP), photochemical smog potential (POCP) and acidification potential (AP), were calculated based on the life cycle inventory (LCI) data at varying phases. The LCI results showed that the recycled HMA was superior to the virgin HMA in terms of their energy consumption and CO2 emissions, with decline rates of approximately 10% for the AC-16 and AC-20 pavements and 5% for the SMA-13 pavement. In addition, the results indicated that two processes (the material transportation phase and the mixture production and transportation phase) contributed the most to energy consumption and carbon emissions, accounting for more than 83% overall. The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results revealed that all the impact categories of recycled HMA decreased greatly compared to those of virgin HMA, especially the GWP. After normalization and weighting, the significant impact category that should be given more attention was the GWP for all types of pavements. The monetized value results showed that it decreased by 10.92% for SMA-13Ⅱ compared to SMA-13Ⅰ, and by 20.85%, 30.74%, 19.53% and 32.17% for AC-16Ⅱ, AC-16Ⅲ, AC-20Ⅱ and AC-20Ⅲ, respectively, compared to that of the virgin HMA. Finally, the changes in the environmental impact of multi-rotary decomposition processes were also evaluated. And the environmental impact between the rotary decomposition process and the conventional recycling method was compared and discussed. The monetized values of AC-16-R-one-50% and AC-16-R-two-70% HMA were reduced by 8.2% and 22.8%, respectively, compared to AC-16-C-30% HMA.

Sustainable Production of Rare Earth Elements from Mine Waste and Geoethics

The vulnerability of the rare earth element (REE) supply in a global context of increasing demands entails important economic and political issues, and has encouraged several countries to develop their own REE production projects. This study comparatively evaluated the production of REEs from primary and secondary resources in terms of their sustainability and contribution to the achievement of the Geoethics concept as responsibility towards oneself, colleagues, society, and the Earth system. Twelve categories of potential environmental and social impacts were selected: human health toxicity, global warming or climate change, terrestrial and aquatic eutrophication, acidification potential, particulate matter, resource depletion, water consumption, fresh water ecotoxicity, ionizing radiation, fossil fuel consumption, and ozone depletion. The results showed that the environmental impact of REE production from secondary sources is much lower relative to primary sources. A comparison of conventional and non-conventional REE resources showed that significant impact categories were related to particulate matter formation, abiotic resource depletion, and fossil fuel depletion, which could result from avoiding the tailings disposal before reuse. Based on these findings, governments and stakeholders should be encouraged to increase the recycling of secondary REE sources with Geoethics in mind, in order to balance the high demand of REEs while minimizing the overexploitation of non-renewable resources.

Comparison of Underground Coal Mining Methods Based on Life Cycle Assessment

Coal is China’s main source of energy, and its production causes a certain degree of air, water, and land resource pollution. Therefore, it is necessary to compare environmental pollution caused by different mining methods. When mining underground coal resources, different mining methods have different levels of environmental impacts. To identify the mining method with the least environmental impact, different mining methods were evaluated by means of a life cycle assessment using Simapro 9.0.0 software. The Ecoinvent v3 database was used to provide background data, and the results were calculated using the Eco-indicator99 method. The findings show that for a 20 m coal column, respiratory inorganics were identified as the dominant impact category based on normalized results, followed by fossil fuels, carcinogens, and climate change. The contribution analysis indicated that electricity and coal mining are fundamental in contributing to these significant impact categories and should be of particular concern. According to the sensitivity analysis, reducing mining activities and increasing extraction efficiency and use are the primary responses to addressing environmental pollution, followed by reducing environmental pollution caused by electricity and steel production. In addition, a summary comparison of the single scores of different mining methods suggests that the environmental burden of pillarless mining is the lowest, and as the width of the coal pillar gradually increases, its single score shows a trend of increasing and then decreasing. Therefore, the single score of non-pillar mining is the lowest compared to that of other mining methods and can be the optimal mining method. This study can provide a scientific basis for the selection of green mining and underground coal resource mining methods.

Life cycle assessment of the environmental impacts of beer production process

In this study, significant environmental impacts of beer production process were established throughout its life cycle it is necessary to characterize all beer production operations; to carry out an inventory of inputs and outputs in every process; to evaluate possible human and ecological effects resulting from environmental emissions; and to define possible improvement potential. There are four major significant environmental impact categories; first ecotoxicity due to pollutants emitted with environmental score of 9.1762E-6 which was equivalent to 28.16%. It included impacts from marine aquatic which was the greater contributor to total ecotoxicity accounting for 74.12%, followed by terrestrial ecotoxicity with 23.5% and fresh water ecotoxicity which was least contributor with 2.3%, the major cause was burning fossil fuels for steam production and release of inadequately treated wastewater. Second was depletion of fossil fuels with environmental score of 6.8923E-6 equivalent to 21.15%. It was mainly due high consumption of natural gas, lubricating oils and diesels for machines and distribution trucks. Third major impact category was global warming with environmental score of 4.9001E-6 equivalent to 15.02% where the major flow contributor was carbon dioxide accounting 91% of total impact and the major causes were gaseous pollutants and heat released during energy production and transportation activities. The fourth significant impact category was human toxicity with environmental impact score of 4.6208E-6 which accounts for 14.18% of total environmental impacts. Its major flow contributor was dioxins making up 51%. The main causes were pollutant from burning fossil fuels in trucks and energy production and use of harmful chemicals.

Energy and Environmental Evaluation of Retrofitting Facades for Zero Energy Buildings: The Case of an Office Building in Greece

Energy and environmental targets are expressed clearly by the EU policies setting ambitious goals for 2030 and 2050 considering energy intensive sectors such as buildings. Pursuing high energy performance with the least environmental impact of a building, along with ensuring the well-being of the occupants, is the ultimate goal of an institutional framework that addresses energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Part of this effort is the improvement of the building envelope’s thermal performance, along with the respective one of HVAC systems, as those determine thee energy performance of buildings in their use phase. Main scope of the paper is to evaluate and analyse different scenarios considering the retrofitting of facades as part of the refurbishment towards Zero and Positive Energy Buildings, but also in connection with the strive for Net Zero Energy, Net Zero Cost Energy and Net Zero Emissions goals. The paper also discusses energy and environmental evaluation of refurbishing an office building in Greece, examining the performance of different envelope construction typologies and alternative insulation scenarios. These scenarios include state of the art insulation techniques, but also innovative design elements such as the use of different final coating materials for ventilated façades like the use of phase-changing materials (PCMs). The results of the assessment undertaken are used to rate the construction solutions by means of energy and environmental parameters proving the environmental impact of concrete and insulation materials in construction phase but also the reduced primary energy consumption and thus the CO2 emissions in the life cycle of the building. Considering the environmental evaluation, the carbon footprint analysis was used according to Greenhouse Gas Protocol focusing mainly on CO2 emissions, which is the main emission target of EU policies. The impact assessment followed demonstrated that the most significant impact categories are global warming, acidification and eutrophication.

Environmental Impact Evaluation of a Fresh Milk Production

The study aimed to evaluate the waste impact on the environment in fresh milk production activities from the dairy cows rearing on farms to the distribution process of fresh milk to a milk processing factory and fresh milk selling agents, identify the most significant potential for contamination from fresh milk production activities on the environment, and provide alternative improvements based on the most significant environmental impact caused by fresh milk production activities. This research was conducted in a dairy farmer cooperative which is an organization that produces fresh milk. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used to evaluate the environmental impact of fresh milk production activities. The analysis was carried out using SimaPro 9.0.0.47 software. The LCA stages carried out were Goal and Scope Definition, Life Cycle Inventory, Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), and Life Cycle Interpretation. The assessment of improvement alternatives was then analyzed using the pairwise comparison method to determine the highest weight. The results showed that the three most significant impact categories, namely eutrophication, human toxicity soil, and acidification. The biggest contamination from fresh milk production activities occurs in the fresh milk extraction process. Processing dairy cow dung into manure was the prioritized recommendation to reduce the impact.

An integrated sustainability assessment of drinking straws

It is estimated that eight million tons of plastic refusal including drinking straws flow to the oceans annually. A local survey revealed that 20% Malaysians use plastic straws daily. Plastic straw bans have become the new norm, and this has encouraged alternative drinking straws to compete on market. Amongst the alternatives, stainless steel straw is a popular replacement of plastic straw. However, the mining of nickel possess sustainability challenges. This leads to the dilemma to determine the more sustainable choice between plastic and stainless steel straws. This paper aims to present a comparative sustainability study of drinking straws via Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The LCA methodology complies with the ISO 14044 standard. The system boundary of the LCA is cradle-to-gate, which covers raw material extraction and manufacturing stages. The functional unit is one drinking straw. Impact categories i.e.: abiotic resources depletion, global warming potential, acidification, eutrophication and human toxicity are studied. Next, a Sustainability Assessment Framework (SAF) is developed to evaluate these drinking straw alternatives. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is incorporated to aid decision-making on sustainability performance based on the Triple Bottom Line of sustainable development covering environment, economic and social pillars. The LCA outcome reveals that global warming potential (GWP) is the most significant impact category, and plastic straw has a lower impact value of 139 g CO2 equivalent compared to 537 g CO2 equivalent for stainless steel straw. The results of SAF shows that plastic straw has a higher priority score of 0.794 compared to 0.206 for stainless steel straw with respect to the sustainability goal. Based on both results, it is concluded that plastic straw is more sustainable than stainless steel straw.

Life Cycle Assessment of a combined cycle power plant in Indonesia

This paper presents the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a 640 MW combined cycle power plant located in West Java, Indonesia. The power plant adopts the dual-fuel firing system, in which both natural gas and high-speed diesel fuels are used. The LCA was performed using the open-source LCA software OpenLCA version 1.9. A functional unit of 1 kWh of electricity generation was used in calculating the environmental impacts. The system boundary was modeled using the gate-to-gate system, which includes all inputs and outputs for the following subsystems: fuel storage, water preparation, electricity production, and supporting subsystems. The life cycle inventory (LCI) used data gathered from July 2018 to June 2019. The CML-IA baseline method was used to perform the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), providing results for ten midpoint impact categories. All impact categories were normalized using World 2000 normalization factors. The result shows that the most significant impact categories are acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), and global warming potential (GWP), respectively. The largest acidification source is nitrogen oxide emission from the combustion chamber, with a percentage of 80.32%. Regarding the combustion stage, the post-combustion method is recommended to remove nitrogen oxide from exhaust gases to lower the AP impact category.

Assessment of water quality variations on pretreatment and environmental impacts of SWRO desalination

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination is a widely adopted desalination technology given its cost effectiveness and lower energy consumption compared to thermal methods. However, SWRO is sensitive to intake water quality and requires strict pretreatment, which requires significant chemical inputs. This study evaluates the relative environmental impacts of water quality (site selection) and specific selection of chemicals on the overall environmental burden of the SWRO process. A life cycle assessment was carried out of environmental emissions based on an existing SWRO plant in the Arabian Gulf, which was remodelled and sized in AqMB® software based on different intake water quality gathered from seawater samples collected from 19 locations across 563 km of Arabian Gulf coastline. The study concluded that a total reduction of close to 25% in different environmental impacts was possible only by optimizing the location of plant, while careful selection of chemicals, particularly those in coagulation, disinfection and pH neutralization, could significantly influence environmental impact categories with high normalized impact such as marine ecotoxicity potential (MAETP). In comparison, renewable energy in the form of wind provided large reductions in certain significant impact categories, but provided a large increase in MAETP compared to natural gas.

Comparative Gate-to-Gate Life Cycle Assessment for the Alkali and Acid Pre-Treatment Step in the Chemical Recycling of Waste Cotton

The development of textile recycling solutions is an area of intense research and commercialization. Chemical recycling solutions are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to separate complex blends and retain or improve the value of the original fiber. The chemical recycling of cotton requires a pre-treatment step to reduce the degree of polymerization (DP). The DP can be reduced in a variety of ways, and here, the environmental footprints of two different pre-treatment approaches are examined using life cycle assessment (LCA); sodium hydroxide pre-treatment and sulphuric acid pre-treatment. We find that the acid pre-treatment has a significantly lower environmental footprint across all impact categories calculated. This is attributed to the lower treatment times required and the lower material and energy requirements for the manufacture of chemicals. The results were normalized to show the most significant impact categories for each pre-treatment, and further environmental implications of the pre-treatments are discussed. The findings will aid academia and industry in implementing the most environmentally benign processes in chemical cotton recycling.

Sustainability Evaluation of Sheep and Goat Rearing in Southern Italy. A Life Cycle Cost/Benefit Assessment

Sheep and goat farming represent a non-negligible share of the worldwide livestock productions. Ovine rearing, although knowing time periods of growth and descents, is today gaining more interest especially with regards of milk and dairy products. This is due to the rediscovery of the economic, social and environmental potential of this type of farming and its products. This work aims to analyze goat farming and its productions using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. LCA makes it possible to evaluate and understand the environmental impacts of livestock farming and dairy processing throughout all the phases of their production. The purpose is to highlight and localize the opportunities for reducing the environmental impacts; compare similar products to each other; evaluate and compare the effects related to different environmental and resource management policies. Two zootechnical companies, located in the province of Salerno (Italy), are investigated. The production process analyzed is precisely that of goat cheese, specifically the “Cacioricotta Cilentana”, a very well-known kind of Italian cheese. The characteristics of goat breeding and the production of Cacioricotta Cilentana are examined in this study. The similarities and differences between the two companies have been highlighted, linked to the breeding, cheese making and sale phases of the finished product. Applying the LCA approach, the environmental impacts of the production process were analyzed and quantified, according to the ReCiPe Midpoint (H) method to derive impact indicators relating to the most significant impact categories (including climate change, human toxicity, acidification, depletion of fossil resources, depletion of water resources). The evaluation highlights the critical points of the process so as to be able to suggest improvement options.

Comparative life cycle assessment of car disc brake systems\u2014case study results and method discussion about comparative LCAs

PurposeTwo life cycle assessment (LCA) studies comparing a new low-particulate-matter-emission disc brake and a reference disc brake were presented. The purpose was to identify the difference in potential environmental impacts due to a material change in the new disc brake parts. Additionally, the validity was investigated for the simplification method of omitting identical parts in comparative LCA. This was done by comparing the results between the simplified and the full LCA model.MethodsThe two disc brakes, new disc brake and reference disc brake, were assessed according to the LCA ISO standards. The ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (hierarchist) impact assessment method was chosen. Simplifying a comparative LCA is possible, all identical parts can be omitted, and only the ones that differ need to be assessed. In this paper, this simplification was called comparative LCA with an omission of identical parts.Results and discussionThe comparative impacts were analysed over seventeen impact categories. The new disc brake alternative used more resources during the manufacture of one disc compared to the reference disc brake alternative. The shorter life length of the reference disc demanded a higher number of spare part discs to fulfil the same functional unit, but this impact was reduced due to material recycling. The new disc brake impacts were connected primarily to the coating and secondly to the pad manufacture and materials. The validity of the simplification method was investigated by comparing the results of the two LCA models. The impact differences were identical independent of the LCA model, and the same significant impact categories could be identified. Hence, the purpose of the study could be fulfilled, and the simplification was valid.ConclusionsBoth LCA models, simplified and full, revealed that the new disc brake had limited environmental advantages. The omission of identical parts made it more challenging to determine if an impact was significant or insignificant. The simplification seemed to be reasonable.

Impact analysis of gold[sbnd]silver refining processes through life-cycle assessment

Abstract: Gold and silver are extracted through the gold-silver couple production process or the gold-silver-lead-zinc-copper combined production process. This paper aims to analyse and compare the life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the gold and silver refining processes. Two production routes are considered in this study: gold and silver refining through the gold-silver couple production process and gold and silver refining which are produced from the gold-silver-lead-zinc-copper combined production process. SimaPro software version 8.5 is used for the life-cycle assessment using the International Life Cycle Reference Data (ILCD) method and the cumulative energy demand method (CED). The geographic region considered in the original dataset is based on Papua New Guinea and Sweden. The major impact categories from the ILCD methods are climate change, human toxicity (cancer and non-cancer effects), ecotoxicity, ionising radiation (human health and ecotoxicity), eutrophication (freshwater, marine, and terrestrial), land use, water use, and mineral resources depletion. The impact categories where the results are analysed and presented here from the CED method are renewables, fossil fuels (oil, coal, and gas), biomass, nuclear, and embodied energy. The analysis results indicate that between gold-silver couple production and gold silver combined metal production process, refining through the gold-silver couple production process have greater environmental impacts. Furthermore, gold refining effects are larger as compared to the silver refining process. Among the significant impact categories, the most crucial is human toxicity (cancer and non-cancer). Results from the cumulative energy demand method shows that fossil-fuel consumption is larger than all other sources of energy demand in the precious-metal refining process.

Life cycle analysis of copper-gold-lead-silver-zinc beneficiation process

Gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper are valuable non-ferrous metals that paved the way for modern civilisation. However, the environmental impacts from their beneficiation stage was always overlooked. This paper analysed the life cycle environmental impacts from the beneficiation process of gold-silver-lead-zinc-copper combined production. The analysis is conducted by utilising the SimaPro software version 8.5. The life cycle assessment methodologies followed are the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) method, the IMPACT 2002+ method, and the Cumulative Energy Demand Method (CED). The most significant impact categories are ecotoxicity, climate change, human toxicity, eutrophication, acidification, and ozone depletion among nearly 15 impact categories which are assessed in this study. The analysis results from the ILCD method indicate that there is a noteworthy impact on ionising radiation caused by the beneficiation process. Out of the five metals considered, gold and silver beneficiation impacts the most while lead‑zinc beneficiation impacts the least. Gold beneficiation has most impacts on the category of climate change and ecosystems. Other major impact categories are ionising radiation, terrestrial eutrophication, photochemical ozone formation, human toxicity, and acidification. The IMPACT 2002+ method shows the overall impact is on ecosystem quality and human health from this combined beneficiation process, dominantly from gold‑silver beneficiation. The life-cycle inventory results show that the blasting process and the amount of electricity consumption in the beneficiation process contribute to cause significant amount of environmental impacts. The comparative impact results are presented and discussed in detail in this paper. Sensitivity analyses are presented based on various electricity grid-mix scenarios and energy-mix scenarios, and the results suggest that electricity grid mix has a dominant effect over the fossil-fuel mix. This paper also highlights the potential steps which could cut down the environmental effects by integrating renewable-energy technologies.

Comparative life-cycle assessment of uranium extraction processes

This study assessed the environmental impacts of uranium extraction through three different mining process namely open-pit, underground, and in-situ leaching. The study is carried out through life-cycle impact assessment by using the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) method, for 14 significant impact categories; the major categories with significant results are ionizing radiation, climate change, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, and eutrophication. Impact assessment through the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) method is also carried out to assess the usage of renewable and non-renewable sources of energy in uranium extraction processes. All analysis is carried out for 1 kg uranium production through three different processes by using heavy fuel and diesel as the energy source. The comparative impact-assessment results for the open-pit mining method, underground mining, and in-situ leaching mining methods are presented and discussed in detail. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis has been carried out to rationalize the linear relationship between the materials or fuels responsible for environmental impacts and sustainability. Three different scenarios are assessed including the base case scenario of the uranium extraction process. Sensitivity analysis results reveal the effect of fossil fuel based energy generation sources is the primary factor for causing environmental impacts during the uranium extraction routes.

Environmental Assessment of Amylase Used as Digestibility Improvement Factor for Intensive Chicken Production in Brazil

Industrial enzymes can be used to improve the digestibility of livestock feed components, thereby increasing the nutritional value of the feed, and allowing farmers to change and cost-optimize the feed composition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the environmental impacts of adding a starch-degrading enzyme (amylase) to feed for Brazilian chicken production. A lifecycle assessment covering all significant processes in the value chain as well as all significant impact categories was used as analytical tool. The application of amylase increases the energy value of corn in chicken feed and allows saving of costly fat in the feed. In Brazil, the saved fat is used either for biodiesel production or as a replacement for other fats in cleaning and hygiene products. The study showed that approximately 6% of greenhouse-gas emission from Brazilian chicken production could be avoided using the amylase. Using the amylase increases the contribution to nutrient enrichment by 0.6% when the excess fat is used for biodiesel. The use of amylase has little impact on agricultural land use, water consumption and acidification.