After successful completion of the course, students are able to:
- understand the coceptual and computational aspects of life cycle assessment (LCA) from a process system engineering perspective.
- perform short-cut and detailed LCA studies and use relevant software.
- apply LCA in process systems at various scales (unit operations, production lines, plants, indutrial clusters, etc.) and stages of process design.
- recognise the computational and interpretation synergies with other types of assessment for process systems (e.g., technoeconomic assessment).
Definition of LCA methodology according to ISO standards (scope, system boundaries, inventory analysis, impact assessment and results interpretation).
Basic and refined models of inventory analysis including aspects of:
- cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave analysis
- background and foreground reference systems
- multifunctionality and allocation
Advanced topics including aspects of:
- sequential and linear programming methods for inventory analysis
- relation with input-output analysis
- perturbation theory of the technology matrix and propagation of uncertainties
Exercises, using also LCA software
The contents are taught through lectures, calculation examples (also with LCA software), analysis of LCA projects for various process systems and processing of various tasks and questions.
