Life Cycle Inventory Analysis of Copper Production system in Chile

摘要

CO-2 and SO-2 emissions from the copper production system in Chile were quantitatively evaluated using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technique. In this study, inventories such as the fuel comsumption of the unit processes were based on published paper. The following observations were made based on LCI analysis:(1) CO-2 emissions from the pyro-and hydro-metallurgical copper are about 0.88kg and 2.36kg/kg-Cu, respectively. And, 1.9Wh and 3.0kWh/kg-Cu were consumed for the electricity, respectively. There is much variance in the CO-2 emissions between pyro-and hydro-metallurgical copper, because sulfuric acid originated from the pyro-process is used for the leaching of hydro-process.(2) SO-2 emissions from the pyro-and hydro-metallurgical copper are about 0.19kg and 0.23kg/kg-Cu, respectively. The desulfurizatoin ratio on pyro-metallurgical copper production in Chile is estimated to be 81precent which is lower than that of Japan.(3) Pyro-and hydro-metallurgical coppers have a complementary relationship in the range of self-sufficient sulfuric acid .The environmental burden to soil and water from the copper production system should be evaluated, because it is not covered in this study.