Indicación del rendimiento

The increase of LCA-related activities in NFC applications as summarized in the previous section show a promising future for the area. Moreover, new trends of LCA in NFC research and applications are also expected in the future which will cover several areas involving product design, inventory data, scopes of assessment, and legislations as shown in Fig. 2.

In terms of product development aspect, LCA information is increasingly being incorporated into the conceptual design stage of the product especially during

NFC Application Life cycle

approach Impact assess-ment method use References Hemp fiber vs.

flax fiber Paper pulp product Cradle-to-gate CML baseline 2000 (González-Gar-cía et al. 2010) Kenaf/PP vs.

polyurethane, glass wool, flax rolls, stone wool, mineral wool, and paper wool

Building thermal insulation board material

Cradle-to-grave Not specified (Ardente et al.

2008)

Wood fiber/PP

vs. PP Preform material Cradle-to-gate Eco-indicator 99 (Xu et al. 2008) Cotton liner/ PP, rice husks/ PP, cotton liner/ HDPE vs. virgin PP and virgin HDPE

Not specified Cradle-to-grave Not specified (Vidal et al.

2009)

China reed fiber/ PP vs. glass fiber/PP

Transport pallet Cradle-to-grave Critical surface- time method (CST95) (Corbière-Nicol- lier et al. 2001) Hybrid glass fiber-hemp/ther- moset vs. glass fiber/thermoset Elbow-fittings for the sea water cooling pipeline

Cradle-to-grave ReCipe method, cumulative energy demand, and IPCC 2007 100a (LaRosa et al. 2013) Kenaf/soy-based resin, kenaf/soy resin with poly- ester blend, glass fiber/polyester Sheet mold- ing compound material Cradle-to-gate Eco-indicator 99 and cumulative energy demand (Wang et al. 2012)

NFC natural fiber composite, ABS acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, PP polypropylene, PLLA poly-

L-lactic acid, HDPE high-density polyethylene, CML Center of Environmental Science of Leiden University, IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Life Cycle Assessment of Natural Fiber Polymer Composites 137

the design and materials selection process. Traditionally, in the decision-making process, designers only consider technical and economic criteria in selecting the NFC materials for their intended application, but with growing requirements of environmental performance by regulatory bodies and customers, the information provided through LCA complements the requirement and aids designers to arrive at a more holistic and optimized decision with balance between all the three aspects (technical, cost, and environment), thus enabling a more sustainable product to be materialized. Among the examples of the incorporation of LCA works in the prod- uct design area are material selection of sandwich panels for car floor component, gear component, and automotive body-in-white structure (Ermolaeva et al. 2004; Mayyas et al. 2013; Milani et al. 2011). This is in agreement with Finkbeiner and Hoffmann (2006), who highlighted that information of LCAs for parts can pro- vide support decisions between different technological or material concepts for new product development apart from conventional requirements such as technical performance, design, vehicle production, cost, quality, etc.

Fig. 2  Future trends of life cycle assessment (LCA) related to natural fiber composites (NFC)

M. R. Mansor et al. 138

Current indicators also show that improved LCA methodology will be imple- mented in the future through the incorporation of social and economic impact into the current environment-based LCA analysis for various applications including NFC. It is argued that current practice of concentrating solely on environmen- tal impact will induce some degree of inconsistency with the defined areas of protection in LCA, for example, social impact will also affect the human health damage categories (Jørgensen et al. 2008). Among them, proposed solution is life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) which incorporates traditional LCA with social life cycle ssessment (SLCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methodolo- gies (Finkbeiner et al. 2010; Kloepffer 2008; Zamagni 2012). The new approach brings together all the three domains of sustainability (environment, economic, and social aspects) into a single assessment method, thus it is able to provide more accurate insight on the impact of products or processes to all stakeholders which are currently being analyzed independently (Foolmaun and Ramjeawon

2013; Vinyes et al. 2013).

Another area that also generates much interest in LCA is on the inventory data which is crucial to secure accurate assessment results at the end of the analysis. It is acknowledged that the research efforts on NFC are tremendously increasing as new classes of NFC such as new reinforcement materials, fully biodegradable matrices, and hybrid natural fiber/synthetic fiber composites are developed and available for various applications, thus concurrently requiring the same amount of effort to quantify them in LCA perspective at various life cycle phases to add to the current available LCA inventory data (Ishak et al. 2013; Sahari and Salit

2012; Sahari et al. 2013). Apart from that, future directions also point out the importance of enhanced quality and reliable data especially on natural fibers to be present and be made more available for application in LCA process so that the higher degree of confidence and credibility for final results can be obtained and better accepted by all stakeholders.

Finally, as the current LCA methodology is being widely established and accepted, it is also expected that LCA will be made as compulsory tool for green certification of products and services in the future especially involving NFC. Thus, the perceived green technology can be verified to be really green which means to be able to provide positive influence to the environment (bring improvement in terms of environmental effects) compared to the current products and services or to its intended applications as LCA enables quantitative data such as cumulative energy demand of products to be determined and assessed by consumers. Up to date, LCA methodology has been steadily implemented to complement green certification process such as in the European energy performance of buildings directive (Direc- tive 2002/91/EC), certification of buildings in Spain, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for green buildings in the USA (Trusty and Horst 2003; Zabalza Bribián et al. 2009).

Overall, it is shown that the implementation of LCA brings more benefits espe- cially to the current and prospective user of NFC in applying the material in newer applications. LCA has untapped potential that still has to be exploited and increas- ing relevance of LCA is expected in the future.

Life Cycle Assessment of Natural Fiber Polymer Composites 139

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