| 1. |
- 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. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Palm Oil
- 2011
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Ingår i: Palm Oil: Nutrition, Uses and Impacts. - : Nova Science Publishers, Inc.. - 9781612099217 ; , s. 159-186
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Palm oil is used for cooking in Southeast Asia and Africa and as a food additive in a number of processed foods world-wide. The production of palm oil is increasing, and it is of special interest from a nutritional point of view due to its high energy content and its significant content of micronutrients. In addition, palm oil is increasingly used to produce various biofuels. Due to large production volumes and diverse applications of palm oil, it is highly interesting and important to study the environmental impacts of its production. This chapter discusses how the environmental impacts of palm oil can be assessed, focusing on the life cycle environmental impacts of palm oil in comparison to similar products. A brief overview of life cycle assessment as a method is given, and results are presented together with suggestions for environmental improvements of palm oil cultivation and production. It is shown that the magnitude of the environmental impacts connected to palm oil in relation to other products is heavily affected by the choice of environmental indicators, which in LCA studies consist of both an environmental impact category and a so-called functional unit. Regarding impact categories, the global warming and acidification potentials of palm oil are lower than those of rapeseed oil per kg oil. The water footprint of palm oil and rapeseed oil are about the same on a mass basis, but for the two land use indicators soil erosion and heavy metal accumulation, rapeseed oil has a lower impact than palm oil. Specific interest is given to the life cycle energy use of palm oil in response to the unclear and diverse definitions of this impact category in different studies. It is concluded that there is a need to carefully define the energy use impact category when reporting on palm oil or similar products, and also to differentiate between different kinds of energy sources. If instead of mass the micronutrient content is applied as functional unit, palm oil still has lower global warming potential and acidification than rapeseed oil when compared on the basis of vitamin E content. However, if β-carotene content is used as functional unit, rapeseed oil is not relevant for comparison due to its negligible content of β-carotene. For that case, palm oil is therefore instead compared to tomatoes on a β-carotene basis, since tomatoes are rich in β-carotene. The tomatoes were shown to perform better then palm oil regarding global warming potential on a β-carotene basis. The effects of time and scale on the environmental impacts of palm oil, which includes changes in technical performance and electricity sources, are also discussed in this chapter. It is shown that combustion of the methane formed from the palm oil mill effluent can significantly reduce the global warming potential.
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| 3. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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How do we know the energy use when producing biomaterials or biofuels?
- 2012
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Ingår i: Proceedings of ECO-TECH 2012.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- How much fossil energy that is used in the production of biomaterials or biofuels (e.g. fuel used in harvesting) is a parameter of obvious interest when optimizing the production systems. To use more fossil fuels in the production of a biofuel than what will be available as the biofuel product is obviously a bad idea. With increasing interest in biomaterials and biofuels, a shift from a sole focus on fossil energy will be necessary. Optimized use of energy over the whole life cycle is one important parameter to ensure sustainability. However, to report and interpret values on life cycle energy use is not as straight forward as what might immediately be perceived. The impact category ‘energy use’ is frequently used but is generally not applied in a transparent and consistent way between different studies. Considering the increased focus on biofuels, it is important to inform companies and policy-makers about the energy use of biofuels in relevant and transparent ways with well-defined indicators. The present situation in how energy use indicators are applied was studied in a set of LCA studies of biofuels. It was found that the choice of indicator was seldom motivated or discussed in the examined reports and articles, and five inherently different energy use indicators were observed: (1) fossil energy, (2) secondary energy, (3) cumulative energy demand (primary energy), (4) net energy balance, and (5) total extracted energy. As a test, we applied these five energy use indicators to the same cradle-to-gate production system and they give considerably different output numbers of energy use. This in itself is not unexpected, but indicates the importance of clearly identifying, describing and motivating the choice of energy use indicator. Direct comparisons between different energy use results could lead to misinformed policy decisions.
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| 4. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Towards transparent and relevant use of energy use indicators in LCA studies of biofuels
- 2012
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Ingår i: 6th SETAC World Congress / SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting in Berlin.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The use of energy has led to resource crises during the history of mankind, such as the deforestation of the Mediterranean during antiquity, and of Great Britain before the 19th century, and the oil crisis in the 20th century and continuing. Considering this, the frequent use of the impact category ‘energy use’ in the environmental assessment tool life cycle assessment (LCA) is not surprising. However, in a previous study, some of the authors noted that the term ‘energy use’ was not applied in a transparent and consistent way in LCA studies of biofuels. In this work we investigate how energy use indicators are applied in a set of life cycle assessment (LCA) studies of biofuels. In the examined reports and articles, the choice of indicator was seldom motivated or discussed and we observed five inherently different energy use indicators: (1) fossil energy, (2) secondary energy, (3) cumulative energy demand, (4) net energy balance, and (5) total extracted energy. These five energy use indicators were applied to the same cradle-to-gate production system of palm oil methyl ester (PME), giving considerably different output results. This is in itself not unexpected, but indicates the importance of clearly identifying, describing and motivating the choice of energy use indicator. All five indicators can all be useful in specific situations, depending on the goal and scope of the individual study, but the choice of indicators need to be better reported and motivated than what is generally done today. Authors of LCA studies should first define the purpose of their energy use indicator (fossil scarcity, energy scarcity, energy efficiency, cost/benefit comparison) and may then make a motivated choice of the energy use indicator.
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| 5. |
- Clancy, Gunilla, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Actionable knowledge to develop more sustainable products
- 2013
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Ingår i: 6th International Conference on Life Cycle Management, Göteborg, 25-28 August.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Companies need to develop more sustainable products to fit into more sustainable future markets, and there is need for ways to guide towards and compare sustainability already early in material or product development. How this can be handled has been studied through action research in a material development project aiming to develop wood-based materials to replace petroleum-based materials while ensuring a more sustainable product. A specific focus was put on creating actionable knowledge to facilitate 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 insights are now used in different other on-going projects in a textile industry setting and in relation to companies’ management systems.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- 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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| 8. |
- 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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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- 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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