Fraunhofer Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics
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Just Spaces: A study of a public space in Mexico City to apply the just city research in designing public spaces
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Crack comparison in radon proof concrete slab - Comparison of crack widths for different compositions of concrete and reinforcement
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Life cycle assessment of phase-change solvents for post-combustion CO2 capture
No full textAs climate change and global warming is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century,
several mitigation methods are under development. Post-combustion CO2 capture and
storage are one of the most mature industrial methods to capture and store CO2. The
capture includes the use of a CO2 absorbing solvent. In the ROLINCAP project, several
phase-changing solvents are under investigation. By using a phase-changing solvent, the
energy requirement of the CO2 capture has been proven to decrease.
However, while a lot of research is focused on finding new and improved solvents, the
cradle-to-gate environmental impact of their production is unknown. During this study,
this environmental impact of DMCA, MCA, MAPA and S1N, characteristic solvents exhibiting
phase change behavior alone or in blends, have been investigated. DMCA and
MCA can be used alone as phase-changing solvents.
A procedure was developed which enables the life-cycle-assessment of non-conventional,
non-industrially produced chemicals. The method consisted of three main steps; (1) a
literature study in order to find industrially suitable routes of synthesis for the compounds,
(2) modelling the different manufacturing processes in Aspen Plus, and studying the
impact of key parameters, and (3) using the results of the modelling to perform cradle-togate
LCAs (looking at Cumulative Energy Demand, GlobalWarming Potential (100a) and
total ReCiPe (H.A) indicators). By applying this method to the representative solvents
mentioned above, an assessment of their environmental impact could be made.
It was found that the environmental impact of the MAPA production was the smallest,
followed by S1N and DMCA, while the highest impact was MCA. However, the impact
per captured tonne CO2 could only be calculated for MCA, due to a lack of data for the
other compounds. Thus no comparison between the compounds could be made.
The cradle-to-gate LCA also gives insights to what parts of the production processes
are the most environmentally damaging. Thus, this study does not only provide data to
bridge the gaps in the environmental foot print of post-combustion CO2 capture processes
based on characteristic phase-changing solvents, but is also very useful for further research
on the environmentally weak points of process synthesis of such solvents
