Unit Process Life Cycle Inventory (UPLCI) – A Structured Framework to Complete Product Life Cycle Studies

Abstract

Major life cycle studies of even moderately complex products have been limited to the life cycle of the product materials and possibly assembly of the final product. The intervening manufacturing transformation of materials/chemicals into products is thus a major segment not well represented by life cycle analysis tools. Yet these transformational manufacturing plants are a large and important industrial sector. In contrast the synthesis of chemicals or materials (often representing the supply chain) is well developed on the basis of connected unit processes (reactors, furnaces, heat exchangers, distillation, etc) to make chemical plant life cycle inventories. This paper addresses an international life cycle effort to develop a unit process approach for the manufacturing plant transformations of materials representing the majority of all product manufacturing plants. The UPLCI approach is thus an enabling technology in the life cycle field. This paper discusses the development of the UPLCI structure, recent successful efforts in verifying/improving UPLCI, the challenges of linking these in sequences to represent plants, and combining the manufacturing and the supply chain life cycle profiles. An important part of this effort is the CO2PE! Project which develops UPLCI data sets with a quality assurance system based on in-depth multi-plant field testing.