Life cycle assessment of functional materials and devices: Opportunities, challenges, and current and future trends

Abstract

Functional ceramics such as piezoelectrics, thermoelectrics, magnetic materials, ionic conductors, and semiconductors are opening new frontiers that underpin numerous aspects of modern life. This widespread usage comes with a responsibility to understand what impact their mass production has on the environment. Life‐cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool employed for the identification of sustainable materials pathways through the consideration of environmental burdens of materials both during fabrication and as a final product. Although the LCA technique has been widely used for the evaluation of environmental impacts in numerous product supply chains, its application for environmental profiling of functional ceramics is now gaining attention. This paper presents a review of current developments in LCA, including existing and emerging applications with emphasis on the development and fabrication of functional materials and devices (FM&D). Selected published works on LCA of functional ceramics are discussed, highlighting the importance of adopting LCA at the design stage and/or at laboratory stage before expensive investments and resources are committed. Drawing from the extant literature, we show that the integration of environmental and sustainability principles into the overall process of FM&D manufacturing, in a way that anticipates foreseeable harmful consequences while identifying opportunities for improvement, can aid the timely communications of key findings to functional materials developers. This guides the orientation of research, development and deployment, and provides insights toward the prioritization of research activities while potentially averting unintended consequences. It is intended that the review presented will encourage the materials science community to engage with LCA to address important materials design, substitution, and optimization needs.

Emerging Indoor Photovoltaic Technologies for Sustainable Internet of Things

“…This concerns the environmental impacts (e.g., human toxicity, global warming, and eutrophication) associated with the sourcing of the base materials used in a given EH and its manufacturing process, use, and decommissioning at the end‐of‐life. [ 58 ] Important aspects that may ensure the environmental sustainability of a given EH technology concern the use of Earth‐abundant and nontoxic base materials as well as low‐energy manufacturing processes. It is especially important to use benign materials for the fabrication of EHs for the IoT because a wide range of IoT nodes are to be placed in daily objects and environments, hence in the vicinity of human end‐users.…”

“…This concerns the environmental impacts (e.g., human toxicity, global warming, and eutrophication) associated with the sourcing of the base materials used in a given EH and its manufacturing process, use, and decommissioning at the end-of-life. [58] Important aspects that may ensure the environmental sustainability of a given EH technology concern the use of Earth-abundant and nontoxic base materials as well as low-energy manufacturing processes.…”

Eco‐Friendly Electronics—A Comprehensive Review

“…[ 116 ] In turn, the recovery from WEEE is considered extremely challenging due the small mass concentration, making its recovery economically unfeasible. [ 171 ] Meanwhile, an LCA study revealed that the mining process of tantalum (Ta) generates more than 85% of the total environmental impact in 13 categories, [ 172 ] and the supply in capacitors for consumer electronics alone accounts for around 53% of the global consumption of tantalum. [ 166 ] Consequently, in the early 2000s, tantalum (Ta) prices rose, boosting niobium in electronic capacitors as a more common substitution.…”

“…[ 116,155 ] Additionally, Smith et al. [ 172 ] concluded that multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) technology has a positive environmental impact in comparison to tantalum technologies.…”

“…Indeed, bismuth is harder to recycle than lead, and the production of bismuth is frequently based on by‐production of the lead smelting process. [ 172 ] As demonstrated for lead, intensive research on substitution of hazardous elements in ceramics is needed and essential to achieve more eco‐friendly electronics.…”