| 1. |
- Andersen, Maj Munch, et al.
(författare)
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Green Nanotechnology in Nordic Construction: Eco-innovation Strategies and Dynamics in Nordic Window Value Chains
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This project analyzes Nordic trends in the development and industrial uptake of green nanotechno-logy in construction. The project applies an evolutionary economic perspective in analyzing the innovation dynamics and firm strategies in the window value chains in three Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Hence the project investigates two pervasive parallel market trends: The emergence of the green market and the emergence of nanotechnology. The analysis investigates how a traditional economic sector such as the construction sector reacts to such major trends.Conclusions are multiple, but among the most important are: Eco-innovation has become the perhaps most important driver for innovation in the construction sector. Search into eco-innovative business opportunities is intense among all companies along the three analyzed Nordic window chains. While we generally find a low uptake of nanotechnology in the construction sector in the Nordic countries we do find quite a high number of nanotech applications in the Nordic window chains. Eco-innovation is influencing strongly on the nanotech development. We see several examples of nano-enabled smart, multifunctional green solutions in the Nordic window chains already or about to having a commercial impact. Currently, it seems the greening of markets is beginning to affect the roles different companies play in the chain. We see a marked shift towards more sys-temic, smart eco-innovative solutions which fit well with nanotech opportunities. Overall, the recent greening of the market seems to be opening a window of opportunity for nanotechnology in the Nordic countries but the widespread discreet firm strategizing towards nanotechnology may reduce the exploitation of these.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Andersson, Magnus, 1983, et al.
(författare)
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Scarce metals in Swedish end-of-life vehicle recycling
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Second Symposium on Urban Mining, Bergamo, Italy.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improved recycling of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) may serve as an important strategy to address short-term supply risks and long-term scarcity issues related to increased global demand of scarce metals. Current European ELV policy does not provide direct incentives for increased scarce metal resource security as it is not aimed specifically at scarce metals. This paper aims to screen the opportunities for scarce metal recycling from vehicles by quantifying the orders of magnitude of near-future scarce metal flows in Swedish ELV recycling. Results point to a lack of dedicated domestic scarce metal recycling capabilities, posing considerable risk of near-future annual losses of single figure tonnes of gold and tantalum, and tens of tonnes of niobium and neodymium. Given plausible differences in scale and of characteristics of losses, a diversity of recycling strategies is proposed if functionality of recycling and availability of scarce metals are to be improved.
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| 4. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing the Environmental Risks of Silver from Clothes in an Urban Area
- 2014
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Ingår i: Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (HERA). - : Informa UK Limited. - 1549-7860 .- 1080-7039. ; 20:4, s. 1008-1022
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The environmental risks from the use of silver-containing clothes (“silver clothes”)were assessed for an urban area. First, we evaluated whether the use of silver clothesmay cause contamination of wastewater treatment sludge that exceeds certain risk thresholds. Second, we assessed the risk of silver exposure to earthworms from applyingthe sludge as fertilizer to agricultural land. The most critical parameter was the concentration of silver in silver clothes, for which estimates in the literaturevary by more than five orders of magnitude. For concentrations at the high end of that parameter range, there is considerably increased concentration of silver in the sludge, and toxic effects on earthworms even at modest use rates of silver clothes suggest high risk. At the low end, no risks can be expected. The main recommendationfrom this study is that if silver is used in clothes, the silver concentration must be kept at the lower end of the range applied in this study if risks are to be avoided.This can be done either by design choices of companies, or by regulation. If the function of the applied silver is not maintained at these lower levels, the use of silver clothes should be minimized.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges in Exposure Modeling of Nanoparticles in Aquatic Environments
- 2011
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Ingår i: Human and Ecological Risk Assessment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1080-7039 .- 1549-7860. ; 17:1, s. 245-262
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Managing the potential environmental risks of nanoparticles requires methods to link nanoparticle properties with macro-scale risks. This study outlines challenges in exposure modeling of nanoparticles in aquatic environments, such as the role of natural organic matter, natural colloids, fractal dimensions of agglomerates, coatings and doping of particles, and uncertainties regarding nanoparticle emissions to aquatic environments. The pros and cons of the exposure indicators mass concentration, particle number concentration, and surface area are discussed. By applying colloid chemistry kinetic equations describing particle agglomeration and sedimentation for the case of titanium dioxide nanoparticles, a limited exposure assessment including some of the factors mentioned is conducted with particle number concentration as the exposure indicator. The results of the modeling indicate that sedimentation, shear flows, and settling are of less importance with regard to particle number based predicted environmental concentrations. The inflow of nanoparticles to the water compartment had a significant impact in the model, and the collision efficiency (which is affected by natural organic matter) was shown to greatly affect model output. Implications for exposure modeling, regulation and science are discussed. A broad spectrum of scientific disciplines must be engaged in the development of exposure models where nano-level properties are linked to macro-scale risk.
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| 7. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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How to make policy-relevant life cycle assessments of future products? Lessons learned from nanomaterials
- 2013
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Ingår i: 6th International Conference on Life Cycle Management, Gothenburg, 25-28 August.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many new nanomaterials are currently being developed, and there is a great demand from policy-makers such as governments and agencies to understand the future environmental impact of nanomaterials. However, assessing the life cycle environmental impacts, e.g. in terms of emissions and energy use, related to these materials and products that contain them constitutes a great challenge, which makes it difficult to meet such needs from policy-makers. The challenge is much due to the many uncertainties that surround new nanomaterials at an early point of technological development, which makes environmental assessment methods such as life cycle assessment difficult to apply. These uncertainties include the future areas of application of the nanomaterial, future designs of products within those areas, and future production processes. When one or more of these uncertainties are present, we say that the life cycle or product chain is embryonic. This embryonic nature of nanomaterial life cycles differentiates them from the life cycles of more established products, such as cups and cucumbers. Assessing the environmental impacts of embryonic nanomaterial life cycles requires the assessor to understand the future, or rather some aspects of a number of possible futures. Hence, we need to make use of methods belonging to the field of future studies, including monitoring of trends in technology development (e.g. via patent analysis) and application areas as well as predicting and exploring by trend analysis, expert judgement, and sometimes even fantasizing. We illustrate the theoretical concept of embryonic life cycles with a number of examples of embryonic nanomaterial life cycles, including carbon nanotubes in composites, titanium dioxide nanoparticles in self-cleaning cement and graphene in electronic devices and composites. We show that a range of future study approaches may enrich, or even be essential to, policy-relevant life cycle assessments. We also show that environmental assessments such as life cycle assessment can be misused or used in questionable ways when applied to embryonic life cycles with the purpose of obtaining policy-relevant results.
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| 8. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Impacts of a Silver-Coated Future - Particle Flow Analysis of Silver Nanoparticles
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Ecology. - 1530-9290 .- 1088-1980. ; 15:6, s. 844-854
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Silver is a compound that is well known for its adverse environmental effects. More recently, silver in the form of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have begun to be produced in increasingly larger amounts for antibacterial purposes in for instance textiles, wound dressings and cosmetics. Several authors have highlighted the potential environmental impact of these NPs. In order to contribute to a risk assessment of Ag NPs, a suggested method named particle flow analysis is applied to estimate current emissions from society to the environment. In addition, explorative scenarios are set up to account for potential technology diffusion of selected Ag NP applications. The results are uncertain and need to be refined, but they indicate that emissions from all applications included may increase significantly in the future. Ag NPs in textiles and electronic circuitry may increase more than in wound dressings due to the limited consumption of wound dressings. Due to the dissipative nature of Ag NPs in textiles, the results indicate that they may cause the highest emissions in the future, thus partly confirming the woes of both scientists and environmental organizations. Gaps in current knowledge have been identified. Especially the fate of Ag NPs during different waste handling processes is outlined as an area that requires more research.
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| 9. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Is graphene a ”wonder material” also from an environmental life cycle perspective?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Abstract of Papers of the American Chemical Society. - 0065-7727. ; 247
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The nanomaterial graphene has attracted great interest for its many potential applications, including composites and electronic devises, and has been referred to by some as a "wonder material" from a technical point of view. However, the question remains whether graphene is also a "wonder material" from an environmental life cycle perspective. In order to investigate this, we applied life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the cradle-to-gate environmental impacts of graphene production. The focus of the assessment was on the foreground system and on more inherent impact categories, namely energy use, water use, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity. Two different production routes were investigated. In the first, called chemical reduction, graphite is first oxidized to graphite oxide, and then reduced by hydrazine to form graphene sheets in solution that could be used in e.g. composites. The second is ultrasonication, where graphite is exposed to ultrasound, and thereby breaks up into graphene sheets in solution, also possible to use in composites. These two routes were compared on a kg of graphene basis. The results indicate that ultrasonication has a considerably lower cradle-to-gate impact than chemical reduction for all included impact categories. For example, the energy use of chemical reduction-made graphene appears to be more than 100 times higher than that of ultrasonication-made graphene. Comparing to the energy use of other nanomaterials, chemical reduction-based graphene appears to have an energy use close to the median. Ultrasonication-made graphene, however, appears to have a lower energy use than any previously assessed nano material. This implicates that the chemical industry should focus their efforts on developing the ultrasonication production route rather than chemical reduction.
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| 10. |
- Arvidsson, Rickard, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Is there a "crystal ball"? Assessing environmental life cycle impacts of new nanomaterials
- 2013
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Ingår i: 7th International Society for Industrial Ecology Biennial Conference, 25-28 June, Ulsan, South Korea.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many new nanomaterials are currently being developed, and assessing the life cycle environmental impacts related to these materials and products that contain the materials, e.g. in terms of emissions and energy use, constitutes a great challenge. The challenge is much due to the many uncertainties that surround new nanomaterials at this early point of technological development, which makes the application of environmental assessment methods such as life cycle assessment difficult to apply. These uncertainties include the future areas of application of the nanomaterial, future designs of products within those areas, and the future production processes that will be needed to produce such products. When one or more of these uncertainties are present, we say that the product chain or life cycle is embryonic. This embryonic nature of nanomaterial life cycles differentiates them from more established products, such as cement and cucumbers. We provide a number of examples of a number of embryonic nanomaterial life cycles, including carbon nanotubes in composites, titanium dioxide nanoparticles in self-cleaning cement and graphene in electronic devices and composites, illustrating their embryonic nature. Assessing the environmental impacts of embryonic nanomaterial product chains requires the assessor to use different future studies approaches, i.e. to use a “crystal ball” to understand the future or rather different possible futures. Existing approaches include monitoring, predicting, exploring, and sometimes even fantasizing. We show how some of these approaches have been used in previous life cycle studies on nanomaterials, illustrating that they may all be relevant to include in environmental assessments and life cycle assessments in particular, but also that they can be misused or used in questionable ways. The important thing is to know which approach to apply in a certain situation in order to ensure a relevant assessment, and to avoid uses that leads to more confusion than knowledge.
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