Life Cycle of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle Production

Abstract

Life cycle impact of emissions, energy requirements, and exergetic losses are calculated for a novel process for producing titanium dioxide nanoparticles from an ilmenite feedstock. The Altairnano hydrochloride process analyzed is tailored for the production of nanoscale particles, unlike established commercial processes. The life cycle energy requirements for the production of these particles is compared with that of traditional building materials on a per unit mass basis. The environmental impact assessment and energy analysis results both emphasize the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels in the upstream life cycle. Exergy analysis shows fuel losses to be secondary to material losses, particularly in the mining of ilmenite ore. These analyses are based on the same inventory data. The main contributions of this work are to provide life cycle inventory of a nanomanufacturing process and reveal potential insights from exergy analysis that are not available from other methods.

Life cycle assessment at nanoscale: review and recommendations

“…Another gap apparent in the nano-LCA literature is that of lack of information on the production processes (Osterwalder et al 2006;Bauer et al 2008;Khanna et al 2008;Kushnir and Sandén 2008;Khanna and Bakshi 2009;Grubb and Bakshi 2011). Khanna et al (2008) caution that the industrial scale nano-LCA results could be gross overestimates as the nano-manufacturing processes are likely to become more efficient with higher yields over time and volume.…”

Can nanotechnology be ‘green’? Comparing efficacy of nano and microparticles in cementitious materials

“…It is clearly evident that the limestone-cement mixes have a lower environmental impact compared to plain cement paste mix, whereas TiO 2 -cement mixes have considerably higher environmental impacts (''costs''). The reason for high environmental impact by the TiO 2 -cement mix is because of the significantly higher energy and emissions ''costs'' of TiO 2 manufacturing process compared to cement production [42,44]. By comparing the environmental ''costs'' of the ordinary Portland cement mix and limestone-cement mixture, it can be observed that the addition of 5% limestone results in almost a 5% decrease in the various impact categories, as might be expected.…”

Life-cycle cost analysis of highway noise barriers designed with photocatalytic cement

“…In recent years, research related to photocatalytic concrete and its NO x degradation rate, durability performance, reaction kinetic models and environmental impact through life-cycle assessment has gained considerable attention (Poon and Cheung 2007, Diamanti et al 2008, Hunger et al 2008, Dylla et al 2011, Grubb and Bakshi 2011. Literature reveals that although, SO x , PM 10 , VOCs, ground level ozone and NO x , are the most critical air pollutants, experimental and analytical models have predominantly focused on NO x .…”