Life cycle assessment can help quantify the environmental impacts of products embedding nanoparticles. Furthermore, it can support the evaluation of absolute environmental sustainability by employing carrying-capacity normalization factors.

In this study, the environmental impacts of three ibuprofen production routes, namely, the BHC, the Bogdan, and the newly developed enzymatic synthetic routes (modified Bogdan process), are assessed and compared by the application of life cycle assessment (LCA). Based on the data obtained through literature and laboratory-based experiments, a pilot-scale production with a capacity of 500 g/day of ibuprofen was simulated to generate inventory data for the LCA study, using Aspen Plus V11. The well-established BHC process was chosen as the benchmark to quantify the operational and environmental benefits of the innovative enzymatic Bogdan flow synthetic process. The comparison highlights the benefit of adopting the modified Bogdan synthesis route via an enzymatic catalyst. Results show that a general reduction of environmental impact is achievable across the whole set of impact categories of the analysis, and the magnitude of such reduction depends on the efficiency of recycling in the production system. Considering a 50% efficiency of recycling, the modified Bogdan system achieves lower environmental impacts in some impact categories like Acidification, Ecotoxicity of freshwater, Human toxicity, Particulate matter, and Resource depletion (mineral, fossils, renewables) while having higher impacts on the rest of the impact categories. Yet, the new process proposed here scores better environmental performances in all of the impact categories when the enzyme recycling is close to 100%, which is promising for future technology development.

The environmental benefits of producing formate via electrochemical reduction of CO2 are not straightforward when compared with the conventional, fossil-based approach.

The environmental impacts of emerging technologies are conventionally identified, regulated, and mitigated only after large-scale deployment. As a result, a considerable number of emerging technologies eventually develop into non-optimized systems, which translate into waste of resources and capitals, and hence reduced competitiveness. Therefore, it is paramount to assess emerging technologies during the nascent stages of their development and expand the conventional set of metrics of the assessment, thus enabling unbiased decisions on the deployment of the technology and promoting sustainable innovation. The challenge is to ensure that the outcomes of the assessment are not compromised by the uncertainties existing at such early stages of technology development. Building on these premises, the Thesis lays the foundations for producing high-fidelity and timely projections of environmental impacts and costs of emerging technologies, presenting an overarching framework for prospective assessments, and testing it on four emerging technologies originating from both academic and industrial RD 2) milli-continuous-flow production of gold nanoparticles for healthcare applications; 3) continuous-flow production of Rufinamide, an anticonvulsant drug; 4) intensified continuous-flow production of zeolite A. The results of the LCA of emerging technologies demonstrate that is possible to provide live and timely feedback to technology developers and identify intervention points and potential solutions for the optimization of the technology since the early stages. Furthermore, the proposed assessment allows to benchmark the performances of the system under analysis against the standard industrial practice, hence quantifying the benefits that would stem from the adoption of innovative production technologies in place of conventional ones. On the whole, LCA of emerging technologies offers an opportunity to structure the collaboration between different actors involved in process innovation. The ultimate goal of this approach is to lay the bases for debating and guiding research and development, and to provide a solid platform to discuss with all necessary stakeholders involved in the deployment of the technology, thus promoting sustainable technology innovation.

This study investigates on the environmental impact of an intensified technology for the manufacturing of Zeolite A, one of the largest zeolites employed worldwide by volume and value. The technology under consideration is an oscillatory continuous-flow synthesis, developed industrially by Arkema, and currently at pilot-scale. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used in this work to measure the sustainability of this emerging technology in an anticipatory fashion, before its full deployment, with the aim of driving the process development toward the minimization of the environmental footprint. The assessment explores the full life-cycle of the production system and comprises comparative analysis, scenario analysis, and a hotspot analysis. Finally, the continuous-flow technology is benchmarked against the environmental impact of a conventional batch production of zeolite A, based on a full-scale commercial plant. The results evidence that significant benefits would stem from shifting from batch to continuous-flow production. The comparative analysis reveals that the extent of the latter advantages depends on the impact category under consideration and directs the next steps of CF system's process development toward pivotal aspects such as the recirculation system to further reduce the system's environmental impacts. Regardless of the chosen production technology, a large share of the total environmental impact hinges on the production of NaOH, a building block of the synthesis, and hence is hardly mitigatable. On the whole, the findings of this work emphasize the need of prioritizing LCA during the development phase of emerging technologies and underline its efficacy to prevent waste of resources and capitals.

This study focuses on the production of hydrogen from municipal solid waste (MSW) for applications in transportation. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on a semi-commercial advanced gasification process for Biohydrogen (Bio-H-2) production from MSW to evaluate its environmental impact on five impact categories: Climate Change, Acidification, Eutrophication Fresh Water, Ecotoxicity Freshwater and Photochemical Ozone Formation (human health). The biogenic composition of waste and the effect of carbon sequestration were analysed for Bio-H-2, uncovering a net-negative carbon process. The counterfactual case of MSW incineration further bolsters the carbon savings associated to Bio-H-2. The production of Bio-H-2 from waste is proven to be competitive against alternative hydrogen productions routes, namely blue hydrogen (Blue-H-2) produced via steam methane reforming/autothermal reforming coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS), and green hydrogen (Green-H-2) from solar and offshore wind, with respect to climate change. These climate change advantages are shown to carry forward in the context of decarbonisation of electricity grid mix, as analysed by scenarios taken for 2030 and 'net-zero' 2050.

The demand of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) is growing steeply as a result of the remarkable advances in the applications of this product in the healthcare and diagnostics sectors. To this end, having an efficient and sustainable production system is of paramount importance for achieving low environmental impacts and avoiding depletion of capitals. In this respect, the present work gives insights on the environmental impact and costs of the production of AuNPs for nano-enabled medical applications, by looking at two production technologies: the conventional batch production and an innovative milli-continuous flow production, currently at lab scale. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and cost assessment are used to evaluate the sustainability and economics of the continuous-flow technology in an anticipatory fashion; this means capturing the environmental impacts and production costs of the emerging technology before it reaches full-scale and is deployed. The aim is to prevent waste of resources in the process development and avoid having a non-optimized final system, which would lead to high costs and reduce competitiveness. The milli-continuous flow production was subjected to a scale up/out-analysis enabling the comparison with the batch production, already established at large scale. The life cycle of both production systems is described, and the results of the assessment comprise a normalisation analysis, which frames the environmental impacts of the gold nanoparticles production in the European context, a scenario analysis, a comparative analysis and a hotspot analysis. The results show that significant advantages can be gained from the adoption of the continuous-flow production in place of the batch system, both in terms of environmental impact and production costs. Specifically, the environmental impact is reduced in terms of human toxicity (cancer effect), ecotoxicity of freshwater and depletion of gold resources; these impact categories were identified as the main carrier of the environmental impact in the conventional production. The main contributors to savings for the flow production are primarily milder cleaning procedures, reduction of hazardous wastes produced, and less labour required for the operation and control of the process. Finally, the depletion of gold resources associated to the production of AuNPs emerges as a major issue. It is hardly addressable by using second-hand gold, and this calls for the necessity of recycling the product at the end of its life cycle or complementing AuNPs with alternative nano-products.

AbstractIn the pharma and fine chemical industries, the development of continuous flow technologies is a process intensification step of primary importance towards the manufacturing of high‐quality products, while reducing the environmental impact and cost of production. The sustainability and profitability of a process can be measured through life cycle Assessment and cost evaluation. However, when applied to emerging technologies, these need to be performed at different stages of the process development in order to limit the uncertainties arising from the scale‐up, and hence providing high‐fidelity projections of environmental impacts and costs at larger scales. The output of the assessment can in fact vary significantly depending on the maturity of the technology and this translates into having different results at commercial scale compared to early estimations. Therefore, in this article, we perform an assessment at two different scales of production, lab and mini‐pilot scale, with the aim of quantifying the uncertainties of the assessment related to the scale‐up, identifying the hotspots of the system, and hence providing guidelines for the further steps of process development. The subject of the assessment is the continuous flow synthesis of Rufinamide. It is the first time that this synthesis is evaluated at pilot‐scale. The results show that low yields in the cycloaddition drastically affect the waste management and the production of precursors, and hence increases environmental impacts and cost of production. This calls for the need of prioritizing the optimization of this synthesis step in order to deploy a green and economically competitive production technology.

The majority of bulk chemicals (e.g. olefins and alcohols) are organic compounds that are almost exclusively produced from fossil feedstocks such as natural gas. Utilisation of carbon dioxide captured from anthropogenic sources, which are both inexpensive and abundantly available, represents an alternative pathway that is drawing increasing attention, mainly for its potential to decreasing emissions of greenhouse gases and resource depletion of chemicals production. Notably, carbon utilisation does not represent an approach to CO2 mitigation because it only delays its emissions rather than removing it over a long timescale; hence, the relevant question that we aim to address is: Can captured CO2 be used as feedstock to reduce the environmental impacts of chemicals' production?. As a case study, this work focuses on the production of formate and presents a prospective comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) between the conventional fossil-based pathway and an innovative, CO2-based process, that involves the electro-catalytic reduction of CO2 using an ionic liquid as solvent. CO2 is assumed to originate from a natural gas-fired power plant and captured after combustion, through a conventional monoethanolamine absorption system. Ionic liquids are used to enanche the reduction of CO2 and its conversion to formate. The study adopts a cradle-to-gate perspective and analyses multiple impact categories including, but not limited to, global warming and resources depletion.

Bio-substitute natural gas (or bio-SNG) produced from gasification of waste fuels and subsequent methanation of the product gas could play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of heating and transportation, and could be a vital part of the energy mix in the coming decades. Although the methanation of trace quantities of carbon oxides has been practiced commercially for many years, methanation from syngas poses a more severe problem due to the high and unstable concentrations of reactants in the produced gas. In this work, a low-Ni methanation catalyst was tested in a differential reactor to derive a kinetic model that could determine a practical operating scheme for the first methanation step of a typical bio-SNG process. The model, comprising water gas shift and methanation reactions, along with their reverse reactions, was used for realistic modelling of the methanation process using high quality syngas, obtained from steam-oxygen gasification of wastes and gas plasma conversion, and to better determine the operation conditions in the first reactor of a bio-SNG pilot plant in Swindon (UK). The tests undertaken show that the catalyst was performing as expected using the waste-derived syngas at industrially relevant conditions, when compared to predictions of models derived from works using bottled gases. This gives confidence that the same approach can be used for the detailed design and operation of once through methanation reactor elements and process system configuration for bio-SNG production at larger scale.