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- Akambih Tajam, Joseph, et al.
(författare)
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SMALL SCALE IN-SITU BIOREMEDIATIONOF DIESEL CONTAMINATED SOIL –SCREENING LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE
- 2010
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Ingår i: ECO-TECH´10, 22-24 November 2010, Kalmar, Sweden. ; , s. 827-835
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Spillage of diesel oil and other petroleum products is a commonly creating need for siteremediation of contaminated soils. In Sweden the most common remediation action isexcavation of the contaminated soil and off site biological treatment by composting.However, a number of small sites spread out in rural areas end up low on priority lists, andwill not be attended to within foreseeable future if ever. For such areas a low cost, easy toapply remediation techniques would be of interest. Enhanced bioremediation of dieselcontaminants in soil by whey addition has been demonstrated in lab scale. Whey is a byproductfrom cheese production. A first pilot remediation trial on an actual site in Gäddede,County of Jämtland, was started the summer of 2010. Using this site as a case study ascreening life cycle assessment model has been set up. The goal of the study was toinvestigate the environmental performance of the whey method, to benchmark the wheymethod toward the excavation and composting practice and to identify environmental hotspots in the whey treatment life cycle. The study aims at establishing if further work shouldbe put into developing the method, or if the environmental performance is such that the wheymethod should be abandoned. It should be noted that even with a slightly worseenvironmental performance compared to other remediation alternatives whey treatment couldstill be of interest, since the small scale sites in rural areas we talk about here otherwise mostoften would not be attended to.Results from the screening life cycle assessment indicate a rather good environmentalperformance of the whey method, partly depending on impact category considered. For thewhey method, impacts from farming activities in the milk production chain allocated to thewhey give significant contributions. Transportation gives important impacts from both thewhey method and the excavation and off site composting, thus logistics should always beconsidered and optimized. The whey on-site treatment could be an interesting alternative forbioremediation especially at sites that would not otherwise be treated, due to small size orremote location.
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| 2. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental challenges when developing renewable materials to replace non-renewable materials - receiving guidance from LCA studies
- 2010
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Ingår i: 9th International Conference on EcoBalance 2010 'Towards & Beyond 2020' 9-12 November,Tokyo, Japan. - Tokyo.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the demand for more sustainable products is growing, the pressure on material developers to improve the sustainability performance of the products that they are developing is increasing. As a consequence, the need to move away from a narrow understanding of “product” and “environment” is becoming more apparent. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach has been used to find rough estimates of how much process energy, raw materials etc. are used in the process of transforming a biomass feedstock into a new material. A reference product with a fossil based material intended to be replaced is used as a benchmark for the new product. The new product must perform at least as well as this benchmark and preferably better. We illustrate this LCA based methodology using the example of replacing petroleum-based polymeric material with wood-based material in a disposable consumer product.
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| 4. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Consequences for wood resource use for incontinence diapers in Europe 2010 to 2050
- 2011
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Ingår i: Annual Poster Exhibition at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, April 12th 2011, Göteborg, Sweden, A7.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Increasing life expectancy results in an ageing society in parts of the world. The old of tomorrow are also expected to have higher comfort demands. One likely consequence is an increase in the need of such products as disposable incontinence diapers, which are today partly based on cellulose from forestry. A calculation of the potential increase for heavy incontinence care (assuming the use of disposable incontinence diapers) was made based on the demographic trends for Europe and on the yield from forestry performed under Nordic conditions. The calculation is using a parameterisation known from literature: I = i * m * u * P. It expresses the impact (I, in our case, forest area in ha) as a product of four factors that humans have the ability to change, in our case, i = ha Nordic forest area / kg material, m = kg material / service, u = service / population in Europe, and P = population in Europe. The 'service' is to keep a customer with heavy incontinence dry for a year, assuming that the same fraction of the population above 50 years as today will need heavy incontinence protection. Under these assumptions, the forest area needed for heavy incontinence care in Europe will increase with about 75% until 2050. According to the current work in the WooDi research project, aiming at producing a wood-based diaper, if the petroleum-based material in the absorbent core in the diapers were to be replaced by wood-based, this would increase the needed forest area to about 136%, assuming a 1:1 replacement ratio by weight which seems to be a low estimate. This is still a small share of the total European forest area (0.2%). However, such an increase in wood demand for only one product is not without problems, since forests to a large extent are already utilised, e.g. for timber and pulp and paper production, and since there is an expected increase in demand for bio-based fuels and materials for replacement of fossil-based products, thus competing for either the yield from the forests or for the land area. At the same time, there are rising concerns regarding biodiversity and other ecosystem services in connection to forestry.
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| 5. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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To develop material for more sustainable products: Learning for action
- 2012
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Ingår i: Science and Technology Day 2012, Poster Exhibition at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology and the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden, March 27th 2012.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since companies have to develop more sustainable products to continue operation in the long term, there is a demand for ways to guide and compare the sustainability already in material or product development. This has been studied through action research in a material development project that aims to develop wood-based materials to replace petroleum-based materials while ensuring a more sustainable product. More sustainable future societies might put very different demands on products compared to the strictest requirements of today. To develop more sustainable products therefore requires future oriented assessment parameters already in early stages of material or product development - where choices determining many of the sustainability burdens of a product are made. Furthermore, the whole life cycle of products needs to be envisaged in order for sustainability to be defined. There is thus, for example, little point in talking about 'sustainable materials' since the sustainability of their use may be strongly affected by the rest of the life cycle, after material manufacturing, thus, the materials need to be seen in a context. A description of important sustainability considerations must be made in relation to the challenges that become visible when looking at a whole product system and in relation to its surrounding world which to complicate this further, are also changing over time, and therefore an appropriate time perspective must be applied. Relevant product sustainability aspects and parameters must be identified and described. Approaches for handling this complex situation has not been found in literature and therefore a team learning approach that deal with these issues has been developed. The proposed approach is aimed for material or product development. It has a specific focus on facilitating innovation towards more sustainable products by translating and integrating significant product sustainability characteristics into each team member’s specific area of expertise and everyday work. The material and product development team members are largely affecting the sustainability performance of the finished product. The approach is an iterative process which should continue until the material or product is available for sale and thus the product sustainability parameters will be modified during the process to include new knowledge. Hence, the assessments will be more exact with time.
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