Life Cycle Assessment of thermal energy storage materials and components

Nienborg, Björn; Gschwander, Stefan; Munz, Gunther; Fröhlich, Dominik; Helling, Tobias; Horn, Rafael; Weinläder, Helmut; Klinker, Felix; Schossig, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2018.11.063

Cited by 25 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One study on facades was identified as relevant due to the use of dynamic simulations to investigate the operational impacts [65]. On a material level, LCA studies on adaptive materials appeared to be mostly missing; available information was found exclusively on materials for thermal energy storage [67][68][69].…”

Section: Background Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organic compounds Paraffins (n-alkanes) Production process similar to other fossil-based materials [69,92,93]. Market presence.…”

Section: Name Production Toxicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leakage hazardous to ground water [40], corrodes building materials [92]. Environmental impact considered similar as other fossil-based materials [69].…”

Section: Name Production Toxicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Re-use of AM materials and parts depends on the usage life of the material, or how many change cycles it can achieve before exhausting the adaptive capacity or showing signs of wear. These materials being very new, their usage life is for most of them not proved through experience, but in the best case hypothesized through lab-testing [68,69,93].…”

Section: C1-c4 End Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Adaptive Building Technologies have opened up a growing field of architectural research aimed at improving the overall building performance, ensuring comfort while reducing operational energy consumption. Focusing on flexibility over short timeframes, these new technologies are however rarely designed within the broader frame of sustainability over their entire lifecycle. How sustainable these zero energy technologies really are is yet to be established. The purpose of the research is to develop a flexible easy-to-use Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool to support creative innovation and sustainable design choices in the early concept and design stages of Adaptive Building Technologies. This paper reports on the results of the first step of the research, providing a mapping in terms of structure and contents of the parameters involved in the design of these technologies. Addressed from a holistic point of view, the elements of the system were defined though a qualitative approach: relevant parameters were collected through document analysis, reviewing the state-of-the-art technology through online databases as ScienceDirect, Scopus, MDPI, ResearchGate, and organized according to hierarchy and relevance in the different life cycle stages. As a result, the paper identifies (1) relevant parameters defining the design of Adaptive Building Technologies; (2) materials, processes and concepts specific to the design of these technologies, as compared to conventional building technologies; (3) issues and knowledge gaps to enable successive research phases; (4) specific actions in each life cycle stage for designers and producers to optimize the design of the technology. The mapping graphically and hierarchically organizes the elements of the system within a flexible structure to be implemented and integrated over time, as the technology evolves, to support parametric design and enable alternative design concepts to arise within a cradle-to-cradle perspective.

show abstract

Section: Background Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organic compounds Paraffins (n-alkanes) Production process similar to other fossil-based materials [69,92,93]. Market presence.…”

Section: Name Production Toxicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leakage hazardous to ground water [40], corrodes building materials [92]. Environmental impact considered similar as other fossil-based materials [69].…”

Section: Name Production Toxicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: C1-c4 End Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is therefore not straightforward to affirm that the (higher) impacts associated with manufacture are compensated by reductions in the operational impacts, which was also the conclusion of Miró et al (2015). The "Speicher-LCA" project assessed the environmental performance of a variety of innovative materials available for energy storage in buildings, as presented by Horn et al (2018). Nienborg et al (2018) verified that PCM could be environmentally beneficial compared to water if used in an application with a small useful temperature difference (e.g., cooling).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable enhancement of district heating and cooling configurations by combining thermal energy storage and life cycle assessment

Guillén-Lambea

Carvalho

Delgado

et al. 2020

Clean Techn Environ Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

District heating and cooling systems are designed and optimized to respond to the latest challenges of reducing energy demands while fulfilling comfort standards. Thermal energy storage (TES) with phase change materials can be employed to reduce the energy demands of buildings. This study considers a residential district located in Spain, where a general framework has been established to identify optimal combinations of energy conversion, delivery technologies, and operating rules. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was implemented within a mathematical model, and the objective function considered the minimization of environmental loads. Two environmental impact assessment methods were applied within the LCA methodology: IPCC 2013 GWP 100y and ReCiPe. Four optimal configurations were considered: a reference system (gas boiler and split-type air conditioners) and then three TES-based systems: one sensible (STES, water) and two latent (LTES1-paraffin emulsion and LTES2-sodium acetate trihydrate). Hourly environmental loads associated with electricity imports from the national grid were available. The conventional energy system always presented the worst performance from an environmental viewpoint, being penalized by the high consumption of natural gas. Regarding carbon emissions, LTES1 showed the lowest emissions, followed by STES and LTES2. Reductions in energy demands compensated the impact of paraffin, and results of STES are strongly dependent on tank design. However, considering the ReCiPe method, STES presented the lowest loads, followed by LTES1 and LTES2. Overall impacts of LTES1 with paraffin are higher than STES with water, mainly due to the paraffin and the high volume required.

show abstract