Bringing Light into the Dark—Overview of Environmental Impacts of Carbon Fiber Production and Potential Levers for Reduction

Tobias Manuel Prenzel, Andrea Hohmann, Tim Prescher, Kerstin Angerer, Daniel Wehner, Robert Ilg, Tjark von Reden, Klaus Drechsler, Stefan Albrecht

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Carbon fibers (CFs) are a crucial material for lightweight structures with advanced mechanical performance. However, there is still a paucity of detailed understanding regarding the environmental impacts of production. Previously, mostly singled-out scenarios for CF production have been assessed, often based on scarce transparent inventory data. To expand the current knowledge and create a robust database for future evaluation, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out. To this end, a detailed industry-approved LCI is published, which also proved plausible against the literature. Subsequently, based on a global scenario representing the market averages for precursor and CF production, the most relevant contributors to climate change (EF3.1 climate change, total) and the depletion of fossil energy carriers (EF3.1 resource use, fossil) were identified. The energy consumption in CF manufacturing was found to be responsible for 59% of the climate change and 48% of the fossil resource use. To enable a differentiated discussion of manufacturing locations and process energy consumption, 24 distinct scenarios were assessed. The findings demonstrate the significant dependence of the results on the scenarios’ boundary conditions: climate change ranges from 13.0 to 34.1 kg CO2 eq./kg CF and resource use from 262.3 to 497.9 MJ/kg CF. Through the investigated scenarios, the relevant reduction potentials were identified. The presented results help close an existing data gap for high-quality, regionalized, and technology-specific LCA results for the production of CF.

Original languageEnglish
Article number12
JournalPolymers
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2024

Keywords

  • carbon fiber production
  • energy analysis
  • environmental impacts
  • life cycle assessment (LCA)
  • life cycle inventory (LCI) data
  • scenario analysis

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