Life Cycle Inventories for Flexible Packaging Lamination

Transcription

1 Life Cycle Inventories for Flexible Packaging Lamination A Comparison of LDPE Lamination with Solventborne, Solventfree and Waterborne Systems Rick DiMenna Engineering Technical Center August, 2008

2 Life Cycle Inventory Quantification of energy/material inputs and environmental impacts of a material or operation over its life cycle Can range from mineral extraction/crop production (cradle) to ultimate disposal of discarded material (grave) Common metric (megajoules/functional unit) used for energy and feedstock inputs 2

3 Purpose of the LCI Compare Energy and Global Warming Potential impacts of alternate systems for flexible packaging lamination: lamination with SolventFree, Waterborne and SolventBorne s Direct LDPE Lamination at 15, 20 and 30 micron (µm) film thicknesses 3

4 Lamination LCI Scope and Functional Unit Scope: Cradletogate LCI, where gate is the customer s shipping gate, with substrate excluded Scope of Lamination LCI Substrate to be Laminated Oil/Gas Extraction Petrochemical Feedstocks or LDPE RMs s or LDPE Lamination Laminate Shipping/ Use/ Disposal Grow/Harvest Crops PlantBased Feedstocks LCI Functional Unit: Lamination of 1 ream (3000 ft2/278.7m2) of flexible packaging 4

5 Flexible Packaging s/ CoReactants for LCI Comparison Rohm and Haas Products for the LCIs: Solventborne Solid Waterborne Adcote 522 MorFree 403A Robond L330 CoReactant Adcote 522B C117 CR9101 5

6 LCI /LDPE Application Data Application Rate Product % Solids Application Ratio Lamination System Lbs Solids /Ream Lbs Organics /Ream Co Reactant CR Solventfree Waterborne Solventborne LDPE15 micron LDPE20 micron LDPE30 micron

7 Data Sources for the LCI Boustead LCI Model, Boustead Consulting Ltd. US LCI Database (Nation Renewable Energy Laboratory) SRI Consulting Process Economics Program reports National Renewable Energy Laboratory report on Soybean (Castor Oil surrogate) production Rohm and Haas LCI for Acrylic Acid and process data for Butyl Acrylate production Rohm and Haas Process Information Customer information on extrusion lamination 7

8 Lamination Drying Ovens Potentially energy intensive operation Needed for solventborne and waterborne adhesives, but not for solventfree Energy values based on Boustead data for packaging lamination 20% added for additional energy needed for waterborne adhesives Largest uncertainty of all energy inputs to the LCI 8

9 Extrusion Lamination Assumptions LDPE density of 924 kg/m 3 (0.924 g/cc) 5.65 kwh/ream for 20 micron extrusion Extrusion energy proportional to film thickness for 15 and 30 micron film thicknesses 1.6 kwh/ream motor energy, independent of film thickness and line speed Natural Gas usage at 1880 kcal/ream 1% LDPE yield loss on extrusion 9

10 Transportation of RMs and Products Petrochemicals/RM transport from US Gulf Coast (or western Canada) to upper Midwest 1760 km by rail or truck, as appropriate Product transport to customer 0 km by truck 10

11 LCI Results Feedstocks and Energy Use, MJ/Ream SolventFree Feedstock 16 Processing & Transport 37 Total 53 Waterborne Solventborne Extrusion Laminated15µm Extrusion Laminated20µm Extrusion Laminated30µm

12 LCI Results Energy, MJ/Ream MJ/Ream Energy Production and Use Transportation Feedstock Energy SolventFree Waterborne Solventborne Extrusion Laminated15µm Extrusion Laminated20µm Extrusion Laminated30µm 12

13 Global Warming Potential in CO 2 Equivalents CO2, kg/ream Solvent Free Waterborne Solventborne Extrusion Laminated15µm Extrusion Laminated20µm Extrusion Laminated30µm 13

14 Energy and MaterialIntensity Differences in the energy and CO 2 Equivalents of the alternate lamination systems are caused primarily by the amount of organic material applied per ream SolventFree Waterborne Solventborne Extrusion Laminated15µm Extrusion Laminated20µm Extrusion Laminated30µm Kg/Ream