An Integrated approach for risk-based life cycle assessment and multi-criteria decision-making - selection, design and evaluation of cleaner and greener processes

摘要

Cleaner and greener technologies for process and product selection and design have gained popularity in recent years. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic approach that enables selection of cleaner and greener products and processes. Recently, significant progress has been made for the use of LCA for product/process evaluation and selection, however, its use in process design and environmental decision-making has not been fully exploited. There are challenging activities which require trade-offs among conflicting attributes like cost, technical feasibility and environmental impacts. These attributes can be analysed at the early design stage by considering the full life cycle of a process (and/or a product). A cleaner and greener process referred economical, technically feasible and environmental friendly alternative. This paper proposes an integrated methodology for design by combining LCA with multi-criteria decision-making. This methodology is simple and applicable at the early design stage and guide decision-making under uncertainty. Application of the methodology is demonstrated through a case study of urea production.