Search results for " ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT"
showing 10 items of 62 documents
Energy and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of asphalt pavements: A Scenario Analysis for Urban Roads
2018
This paper aims at calculating the life-cycle energy and the environmental impacts pertaining to roads management, including materials production, transportation, construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation. A life-cycle approach is applied to assess energy and environmental impacts of a typical Italian urban road, according to the ISO 14040 series. In more detail, the Authors assess the energy and environmental profile of different optimized scenarios of bituminous mixtures. The aim of scenario analysis is to identify the less impacting scenario from an energy and environmental point of view. For each analysed scenario, the contribution of each life-cycle step to the total impacts and th…
LCA of an Asphalt Mixture Produced in a Southern Italian Plant: Analysis and Perspectives
2021
In recent years, a growing attention on environmental issues affecting all fields and procedures of the productive sectors has raised, aiming to reduce energy and raw-material consumptions and pollution effects on environment. Due to the involved volumes and to the nature of the related materials and productive processes, the civil and road sectors have been strongly invested by this change of perspective. Therefore, a proper estimation of the environmental impacts for the entire life cycle of the asphalt mixtures for road construction and maintenance activities is extremely important. For performing similar investigations, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become one of the most reliable and…
Subtractive versus mass conserving metal shaping technologies: an environmental impact comparison
2015
The scientific studies in the domain of environmental sustainability of metal processing technologies predominantly focus on conventional material removal processes, as milling and turning. Despite some exceptions, many other non-machining technologies, such as metal forming processes, are still not well documented in terms of their energy and resource efficiency. Moreover, to properly evaluate the environmental impact of a given process, a standing-alone approach is no longer sufficient. In order to offer a valuable contribution in the domain of metal shaping sustainability, the present paper proposes a thorough methodology entailing to compare, from the environmental point of view, two tr…
Embodied energy and environmental impacts of a biomass boiler: a life cycle approach
2015
The 2030 policy framework for climate and energy, proposed by the European Commission, aims towards the reduction of European greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in comparison to the 1990 level and to increase the share of renewable energy of at least the 27% of the European's energy consumption of 2030. The use of biomass as sustainable and renewable energy source may be a viable tool for achieving the above goals. However, renewable energy technologies are not totally clean because they cause energy and environmental impacts during their life cycle, and in particular they are responsible of air pollutant emissions. In this context, the paper assesses the energy and environmental impacts of a …
Towards more sustainable airfield pavements using life-cycle assessment of design alternatives
2020
Airports are critical infrastructures and their success is paramount to development through tourism, trade and connectivity. Within the airport, the runway pavement must always be in a pristine condition. Consequently, pavement design and maintenance decisions are vital. Authorities must make decisions concerning preferred materials for design and maintenance. Decisions should be balanced by both economic and environmental factors. This paper considers a case study at Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO), Palermo, Italy, where air traffic has been steadily increasing. Different pavements are proposed: flexible Asphaltic concrete designs with both traditional Asphaltic concrete and using reclaim…
Sensitivity analysis to quantify uncertainty in Life Cycle Assessment: The case study of an Italian tile
2011
Abstract The results of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study can be affected by several uncertainty sources, mainly due to the methodological choices, the initial assumptions, i.e. allocation rules, system boundaries and impact assessment methods, and the quality of the available data. Then, the experts should estimate the extent of the above-mentioned sources of uncertainty for improving the reliability and the representativeness of the obtained eco-profiles. To estimate the uncertainty is necessary to obtain reliable, transparent and representative LCA results and to correctly support decision-makers in the selection of different product or process options. The following paper starts from …
Energy and environmental impacts of Energy related products (ErP): a case study of biomass-fuelled systems
2014
Abstract Energy-related Products (ErP) account for a large proportion of European energy and natural resource consumption. In 2007, ErP were responsible for the consumption of about 239 Mtoe of electricity and about 555 Mtoe of fuels. In order to reduce the energy and environmental impacts of these products, the European Commission published the Directive 2009/125/EC on the eco-design of ErP. This Directive represents a key component of European policy for improving the energy and environmental performances of products in the internal market. In this context, it is important to develop scientific research aimed at assessing the energy and environmental impacts of ErP, and at defining their …
Characterization of the Etna volcanic emissions through an active biomonitoring technique (moss-bags): Part 1 – Major and trace element composition
2013
Active biomonitoring using moss-bags was applied to an active volcanic environment for the first time. Bioaccumulation originating from atmospheric deposition was evaluated by exposing mixtures of washed and air-dried mosses (Sphagnum species) at 24 sites on Mt. Etna volcano (Italy). Concentrations of major and a large suite of trace elements were analysed by inductively coupled mass and optical spectrometry (ICP-MS and ICP-OES) after total acid digestion. Of the 49 elements analysed those which closely reflect summit volcanic emissions were S, Tl, Bi, Se, Cd, As, Cu, B, Na, Fe, Al. Enrichment factors and cluster analysis allowed clear distinction between volcanogenic, geogenic and anthropo…
Trace element mobility during interaction between rain and volcanic ash on Mt. Etna
2012
Volcanic emissions represent one of the most relevant natural sources of trace elements to the troposphere, both during and between eruptions. Due to their potential toxicity they may have important environmental impacts from the local to the global scale. Atmospheric precipitation was collected approximately every two weeks, from April 2006 to December 2007, using a network of five rain gauges, located at various altitudes on the upper flanks around the summit craters of Etna volcano. The collected samples were analysed for major (Ca, Mg, K, Na, F, SO4, Cl, NO3) and a large suite of trace elements (Ag, Al, As, Au, B, Ba, Be, Bi, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Hg, La, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Si, S…
A Life Cycle Environmental Impact Comparison between Traditional, Hybrid, and Electric Vehicles in the European Context
2021
Global warming (GW) and urban pollution focused a great interest on hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as cleaner alternatives to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). The environmental impact related to the use of both ICEV and HEV mainly depends on the fossil fuel used by the thermal engines, while, in the case of the BEV, depends on the energy sources employed to produce electricity. Moreover, the production phase of each vehicle may also have a relevant environmental impact, due to the manufacturing processes and the materials employed. Starting from these considerations, the authors carried out a fair comparison of the environmental …