Continued from page 23
The system boundaries for this LCA were set as cradle-to-gate, i.e. it covers all relevant life cycle stages from the supply of materials (e.g. palm fruit or fossil resources) to the production of LIGALUB 19 TMP or DITA. Use phase and end-of-life have not been included as the applications for both products are similar and out of the control of base oil manufacturers.
At different steps in the raw material supply chain, multiple co-products are produced at the same time which makes partitioning necessary. In this LCA, the mass allocation approach was preferred, first because a single type of allocation method throughout the life cycle of the product leads to better transparency and second because other types of allocation, such as energy or economic allocation, were found less suitable due to the volatile market situation of these products and the fact that they have multiple purposes, for food, feed, fuels, chemicals and other materials.
The quality of the used data is essential for conducting an LCA. For the assessment of LIGALUB 19 TMP primary data were provided by Peter Greven and where no primary data were available secondary data were taken from the Ecoinvent 3.8 database and expert estimates. For the production of DITA, secondary data were used to replicate the European production of DITA.
The potential environmental impacts have been assessed based on the Environmental Footprint 3.0 method (EF 3.0). The method includes a total of 16 impact categories, which are depicted in figure 1. It has to be noted that three impact categories from the
method related to eco- and human toxicity were not included in external communication, because they are seen as not robust enough to be used for external communications.2
For bio-based products, the biogenic carbon uptake has to be taken into account as well. The characterisation factors of -1 for CO2 +1 for CO2
uptake and
emissions were used. As the biogenic carbon uptake of the main material is considered as being a product property, the uptake was calculated based on the biogenic carbon content of the product. Therefore, LIGALUB 19 TMP was attributed with a biogenic carbon uptake of 2.08 kg CO2
/kg based on
its bio-based carbon content of 81 % and DITA was attributed with 0 kg CO2
/kg based on its bio-based carbon content of 0 %.
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) The LCIA aims at evaluating and understanding the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts. With the contribution analysis, the comparative analysis and the sensitivity analysis it includes different perspectives.
Within the scope of the contribution analysis of 1kg lubricant ester, the influence of the different raw materials and processes was investigated for each of the impact categories.
For LIGALUB 19 TMP the evaluation shows that the major impacts arise from the upstream palm fruit bunch and fatty acid supply while the influence of alcohol supply and esterification process are low for most of the indicators. For DITA, dependent on
Figure 1: Contribution analysis for 1 kg lubricant ester (left: DITA, right: LIGALUB 19 TMP) 2
Sala, S., Cerutti, A. and Pant, R., Development of a weighting approach for the Environmental Footprint, EUR 28562 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2017, ISBN 978-92-79-68041-0 (print),978- 92-79-68042-7 (pdf), doi:10.2760/945290 (online),10.2760/446145 (print), JRC106545
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LUBE MAGAZINE NO.185 FEBRUARY 2025
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