Life Cycle Assessment of The Formalin Production Process Using Methods Eco-indicator 99, IMPACT 2002+, EDIP 2003

Abstract

Life cycle assessment is a suitable tool to examine and measure of the environmental aspects of the production of a product from the beginning to its formation. In this study, the environmental impacts of the production process of 1 ton of formalin in an industrial unit producing formalin with the approach of life cycle assessment and the requirements of the international standard ISO14040:2006, the use of SimaPro9 software and three evaluation methods Eco-indicator 99, IMPACT 2002+ and EDIP 2003 were investigated in the period of 2019-2020. The results of modeling with the Eco-indicator 99 method showed that the environmental impact of using methanol is 86% of the total environmental impact of the formalin production process. 80% of this impact comes from the consumption of fossil fuels in the production of methanol. The results obtained from the modeling of the formalin production process by applying the characteristic coefficients of the EDIP 2003 method indicate that the destruction of the ozone layer is the most important effect of the formalin production process and methanol has an 82% effect on the environmental effects of the formalin production process. Among them, more than 28% of the harmful effect of methanol consumption is on the destruction of the ozone layer. The results of modeling with the IMPACT 2002+ method show that 83% of the environmental impacts of the life cycle of formalin production are caused by the consumption of methanol, and the consumption of non-renewable energy sources has an impact of 60% on this value.

Keywords

• environmental impacts
• formalin
• life cycle assessment
• modeling
• simapro software