title: Combining life cycle assessment and qualitative risk assessment: the case study of alumina nanofluid production.
abstract: In this paper the authors propose a framework for combining life cycle assessment (LCA) and Risk Assessment (RA) to support the sustainability assessment of emerging technologies. This proposal includes four steps of analysis: technological system definition; data collection; risk evaluation and impacts quantification; results interpretation. This scheme has been applied to a case study of nanofluid alumina production in two different pilot lines, "single-stage" and "two-stage". The study has been developed in the NanoHex project (enhanced nano-fluid heat exchange). Goals of the study were analyzing the hotspots and highlighting possible trade-off between the results of LCA, which identifies the processes having the best environmental performance, and the results of RA, which identifies the scenarios having the highest risk for workers. Indeed, due to lack of data about exposure limits, exposure-dose relationships and toxicity of alumina nanopowders (NPs) and nanofluids (NF), the workplace exposure has been evaluated by means of qualitative risk assessment, using Stoffenmanager Nano. Though having different aims, LCA and RA have a complementary role in the description of impacts of products/substances/technologies. Their combined use can overcome limits of each of them and allows a wider vision of the problems to better support the decision making process.
authors: ENEA-Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76-00196 Rome, Italy. Electronic address: grazia.barberio@enea.it.
authors: Grazia
authors: G
authors: Barberio
authors: ENEA-Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76-00196 Rome, Italy.
authors: Simona
authors: S
authors: Scalbi
authors: ENEA-Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76-00196 Rome, Italy.
authors: Patrizia
authors: P
authors: Buttol
authors: ENEA-Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76-00196 Rome, Italy.
authors: Paolo
authors: P
authors: Masoni
authors: University of Bologna, C.I.R.S.A., Ravenna, Italy.
authors: Serena
authors: S
authors: Righi
mesh_terms: D000537:Aluminum Oxide; D002617:Chemical Industry; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D000537:Aluminum Oxide
keywords: Life cycle assessment (LCA); Nanoalumina; Nanofluids; Nanomaterials; Qualitative risk assessment (RA)