Felipe Cerdas

Life Cycle Assessment of 3D Printed Products in a Distributed Manufacturing System

Summary Motivated by the rising costs of doing business overseas and the rise and implementation of digital technologies in production, new strategies are being explored to bring production and demand closer. While concepts like cloud computing, internet of things, and digital manufacturing increasingly gain relevance within the production activities of manufacturing companies, significant advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies offer the possibility for companies to accelerate product development and to consider new supply chain models. Under this production scheme, material supply chains are redefined and energy consumption hotspots are relocated throughout the life cycle of a product. This implies a diversification of energy mixes and raw material sources that poses a risk of shifting problems between life cycle phases and areas of protection. This study compares a conventional mass scale centralized manufacturing system against a 3D printing-supported distributed manufacturing system on the basis of the production of one frame for eyeglasses using the life cycle assessment methodology. The study indicates clearly that the optimization potential is concentrated mainly in the energy consumption at the unit process level and exposes a close link to the printing material employed.

LCA of Electromobility

Private transportation is increasingly responsible for a significant share of GHG emissions. In this context, electric vehicles (EVs) are considered to be a key technology to reduce the environmental impact caused by the mobility sector. While EVs do offer an opportunity to decrease the production of greenhouse gases radically by avoiding the generation of tailpipe emissions, different technological challenges must be overcome. On the one side, the production of the battery system is of significant importance as it is reckoned to be responsible for around 40–50% of the total CO2-eq. emissions of the vehicle’s manufacturing stage. Moreover, the additional requirements for metals like copper and aluminium for the battery system as well as rare earth metals for the production of electric motors might lead to shifting the problem to other life cycle stages or areas of impact. On the other side, the source of the energy used to power an EV has an ultimate influence on the environmental impact caused during the vehicle’s use stage. The life cycle assessment methodology is normally used to measure the environmental impact of electric vehicles and to identify potential problem shifting. In this chapter, we present an overview of the application of the methodology within the electric mobility sector.

Environmental Aspects of the Recycling of Lithium-Ion Traction Batteries

Recycling lithium-ion traction batteries is expected to contribute decreasing the environmental impact of electric vehicles. Recycling might not only help reducing the amount of primary material required to be supplied to the battery industry but also preventing landfill and incineration activities. Nevertheless, recycling does not imply per se an environmental benefit as its impact is affected by different issues such as the quality of the material recovered, the energy and material consumption by the process itself and the efforts caused by the required logistics. This chapter presents an analysis of the most relevant aspects of the recycling process of lithium-ion batteries from an environmental perspective. It first introduces a framework to understand the different ways in which a recycling industry might affect the environment. This framework is further applied to describe the potential environmental effects of recycling traction batteries. Using primary data, we conducted an energy and materials flow analysis of the process developed within the LithoRec project. Finally, we discuss the results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) performed within the context of the LithoRec project and identify key issues to be considered in order to develop recycling processes that contribute to develop an environmentally consistent recycling strategy parallel to the rising traction battery industry.

Disassembly Planning and Assessment of Automation Potentials for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Traction batteries are composed of various materials that are both economic valuable and environmentally relevant. Being able to recover these materials while preserving its quality is not only economically attractive, but it can also contribute to decrease the environmental impact of electric vehicles. Disassembly can play in this regard a key role. On the one hand it might allow to separate potential hazardous substances and avoid an uncontrolled distribution of these substances into other material flows. One the other hand disassembly might promote improving the rate of material recovered while preserving its quality and decreasing disassembly costs. In this chapter we present a methodology for the estimation of disassembly sequences and for the estimation of automation potentials for the disassembly of traction batteries. The methodology is illustrated with an experimental case study.

Using Network Analysis for Use Phase Allocations in LCA Studies of Automation Technology Components

This article discusses the consideration of the use phase of automation technology components (ATCs) in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). It aims to contribute to the LCA methodology by exploring a relevance-based allocation method for assessing ATCs and pneumatic components respectively. Although the environmental impact of ATCs in the use phase is rather insignificant when analyzed as a single component, its interaction with other components within an application implies further leverages to the impact caused by the system in the use phase. The social network analysis is an interdisciplinary method that is used in empirical social research and well likely to close the gap between micro level and macro level. This article transfers the social method to automation technology components aiming at estimating the specific contribution of each component to the overall system impact in the use stage.

Integrating Life-Cycle Assessment into Automotive Manufacturing—A Review-Based Framework to Measure the Ecological Performance of Production Technologies

The transition of automotive manufacturing towards sustainability becomes more relevant when new product technologies as lightweight and electric powertrains shift environmental impacts from the use phase to the production phase. Therefore, a systemic assessment and an ecological optimization of novel production processes is necessary before implementation in factories. Furthermore, product design choices pre-determine the environmental performance of production processes. Based on a brief literature analysis of sustainable manufacturing, a framework is developed that integrates production processes with product development processes in an ecological context. The identification of ecologically-relevant core processes represents the basis for the framework development and explains, why the integration of life-cycle considerations in product development processes is decisive. Aim of the framework is to contribute to a holistic understanding of drivers that generate environmental impacts in automotive production. Furthermore, it establishes a life-cycle approach for production, which is crucial to evaluate the ecological relevance of individual resource flows to, within and from the system. The applicability of the framework is critically discussed concerning scope of the assessment, data requirements, functional unit and potential allocations problems.

Product System Modularization in LCA Towards a Graph Theory Based Optimization for Product Design Alternatives

In light of current environmental challenges, industrial companies are increasingly required to reduce their individual environmental impact. As these companies face economic constraints, the reduction of the specific impacts needs to be achieved in the most cost-efficient manner. This is leading to trade-offs between the potential environmental improvements driven by particular measures and the costs of these measures. Due to the inherent complexity of product systems many different measures to alter the products properties exist, leading to a high number of possible combination alternatives in the foreground system and consequently to many different product system set-ups and LCA results. Modular LCAs are an approach to calculate these results by performing separated LCAs for all individual life cycle modules, which afterwards are reconnected again to form the LCA results for all possible module combinations. However, when the LCA result of one of these modules is influenced by interactions with other modules, the consideration of these influences leads to a fast rise in the data demand for a modular LCA. Modelling such an optimization problem via graph theory can be a possible way to address interdependencies between modules while still being able to provide the necessary data demand through a systematic graph design.

Evaluation of the Recyclability of Traction Batteries Using the Concept of Information Theory Entropy

As traction battery technologies and electro mobility as a whole continue to grow in importance, the recyclability of batteries has increasingly gained attention in politics, industry and science. The aim of this paper is to broaden the understanding about the recycling of traction batteries by applying the concept of information theory entropy. To this end, information theory-based entropy indicators are used to determine the material mixing complexity of current and future battery chemistries used in electric vehicles. Through the integration of different economic metrics and with the help of additional related information on industrial, political and social influencing factors the recyclability of traction batteries is evaluated and the development of future battery recycling systems and policies is discussed. The results show that the proposed methodology is suitable for comparing different product technologies and that significant differences exist regarding the determining factors for the recyclability of different battery technologies.

Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Vehicles in Fleet Applications

Electric vehicle fleets have the potential to decrease transportation related greenhouse gas emissions. However, the technology shift towards electric mobility can be linked to environmental trade-offs that need to be addressed adequately in order to ensure environmental advantages. This chapter presents the evaluation of the environmental impacts of two exemplary electric vehicle fleets in the project Fleets Go Green. The evaluation focuses mainly on the use stage and explores different influencing factors such as electricity mix, ambient temperature and driving patterns.