TY - JOUR
T1 - Bringing Light into the Dark—Overview of Environmental Impacts of Carbon Fiber Production and Potential Levers for Reduction
AU - Prenzel, Tobias Manuel
AU - Hohmann, Andrea
AU - Prescher, Tim
AU - Angerer, Kerstin
AU - Wehner, Daniel
AU - Ilg, Robert
AU - von Reden, Tjark
AU - Drechsler, Klaus
AU - Albrecht, Stefan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - carbon fiber production
KW - energy analysis
KW - environmental impacts
KW - life cycle assessment (LCA)
KW - life cycle inventory (LCI) data
KW - scenario analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85181850154&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/polym16010012
DO - 10.3390/polym16010012
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85181850154
SN - 2073-4360
VL - 16
JO - Polymers
JF - Polymers
IS - 1
M1 - 12
ER -