Page 168 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

9 Life Cycle Inventory Analysis 153

(a) Emission A Emission B Emission B
1.8kg 1.5kg 2kg
Prod. W Prod. Z Prod. Z Prod. Y Prod. Y Prod. X
0.3kg 1kg 1.2kg 1kg 2kg 1kg
Process 3 Process 2 Process 1

Resource A Resource A Resource B
2.5kg 1.3kg 1kg

(b) Emission A Emission B Emission B
432kg 300kg 200kg
Prod. W Prod. Z Prod. Y Prod. X
72kg 240kg 200kg 100kg
Process 3 Process 2 Process 1

Resource A Resource A Resource B
600kg 260kg 100kg

Fig. 9.8 Three simplified unit processes unconnected (a) and connected (b) based on a study
reference flow of 100 kg of product X (the reference flow of process 1)

Table 9.6 Software for performing LCA (non-exhaustive list)
Name Information
SimaPro Pré Consultants; www.pre-sustainability.com/simapro
GaBi Thinkstep; www.gabi-software.com/international/index/
OpenLCA GreenDelta (open access); www.openlca.org/
Umberto Ifu Hamburg; www.ifu.com/en/umberto/

relevant unit processes; the linking to available unit process databases and storing
of own processes, and the linking of elementary flows in the inventory results to the
relevant characterisation factors for the life cycle impact assessment. Table 9.6
shows some of the widely used software for LCA

9.5.1 Database and Software Specific Aspects

As mentioned in Sect. 9.3.2 processes from LCI databases exist in disaggregated
and aggregated versions, the difference being that the latter scales all processes
upstream and downstream according to the reference flow of the process and
aggregates their elementary flows, so that the only output of the aggregated process
(or input, in the case of waste treatment processes) that is not an elementary flow is
its reference flow. In practice, some LCI databases only provide aggregated