Life Cycle Assessment of Secondary Extruded Aluminum Production Process in Industrial City of Arak

Abstract

Abstract. In this study, the life cycle assessment model for the secondary extruded aluminum represents a cradle-to-gate process that starts with recycling aluminum scrap and ends in the ultimate product of extruded aluminum transferred to final product manufacturer. In the following, data are mainly collected from the literature, and ecoinvent3's database. The quantitative analysis of the use of the energy and pollutants for production of the secondary extruded aluminum are estimated with eco-indicator-99 methodology and SimaPro8.0.4 package. The impact of the secondary extruded aluminum production on the environment is studied by evaluating three damage impacts: human health, ecosystem quality and resources. Results indicate that the resources make the highest contribution by 0.58pt (4284.35 MJ) and human health by 0.16pt (0.00136 DALY) is located in the next rank. The endpoint ecosystem quality (44.64 PDF * m 2 yr) is insignificant in this process. Also, the total required energy for manufacturing of 600 kg aluminum profile in the model was 8842 MJ. Based on the results, the impact of the secondary aluminum extrusion process on the ozone layer depletion is shown to be insignificant. Also, despite using aluminum scraps, the model incurs significant environmental load. The study is implemented in the industrial city of Arak.