News on BOOSTER Life-Cycle Assessment analysis

BOOSTER project is working on a LCA (Life-cycle assessment) analysis that starts with the synthesis of the raw material (the cradle) and finishes at the end of the product life cycle (the grave).

Initially, the consortium identified the European Union and international legislative framework related to the implementation of LCA in production processes, to quantify the environmental pressures of the product and the industrial process chain.

The first step was to estimate the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI), therefore, all project partners delivered inventory data related to the materials, nanomaterials, and processes. For classification, all the inventory data were assigned into impact categories (IC) according to their specific contribution to the global warming. The analysis of Life Cycle Inventory is now in progress and the project partners are collaborating on selected items clarification.

Even though the current ISO-based LCA framework (ISO14040 and ISO14044) is fully applicable to advanced molecular materials and nanomaterials, there are some limits with lack of inventory data, lack of appropriate characterization factors and lack of data for end-of-life and possible re-use.

The LCA is an ongoing process that will be finalized by the end of the project.