Improvement of life cycle assessment software and its applications

Abstract

LCSoft is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software which developed for perform LCA together with process design. It is a stand-alone tool with ability to be integrated with other process design tools such as process simulation software (PROII/ASPEN), economic analysis tool (ECON), and sustainable process design tool (SustainPro). In addition, several optional interpretation features are available such as, sensitivity analysis, alternative comparison, and eco-efficiency evaluation. In this research, LCSoft had been improved in performance and application range. The development framework consisted of four tasks. The first task deals with improvement of LCI and LCIA calculation which new pathway for calculation and allocation had been added. The second task deals with new features development which including normalization, parameter sensitivity analysis, data quality indicator, and endpoint impact categories. The third task deals with extension of LCI data in order to cover all of impact categories calculation. The fourth task deals with validation of LCSoft software. The integrated software was validated and verified by comparing assessment results for bioethanol production from cassava rhizome process and for Para-xylene production by Toluene Methylation as case studies and compared with other commercial LCA software. The results indicated that the new feature of LCSoft provided reliable calculations very efficiently, and were especially useful for chemical and biochemical sustainable process design studies.