Research On Refrigerator Life Cycle Environmental Impact Assessment

Along with the deteriorating of environment and the increasingly seriousness of resource issues, people are more conscious about green design and manufacturing. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) which is the foundation for the implementation of green design and manufacturing has become the research hot spots in recent decades. Conducting Life Cycle Assessment of refrigerators, so as to improve its environmental performance during its life cycle, has a very important practical significance.In this paper, first we conducted in-depth research for the theoretical method of LCA, analyzed the LCA framework and the research progress of home appliance LCA. The development and design of home appliance LCA database is also the focus of our research, as well as the theoretical methods for selecting LCI database. In our research we proposed the general principles for LCI database selection.Then we carried out the Life Cycle Environmental Impact Assessment of refrigerator. The scope of the evaluation includes the main life cycle stages of refrigerator, such as the manufacturing, distribution and using, as well as the end of life disposal. We have established an evaluation model for typical refrigerator through the collection of Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data of refrigerator, which is also one of the main accomplishments of our research.Results of LCI analysis show that during the manufacturing stage of refrigerator parts made by ABS consumed most of the energy, production of raw materials like rubber and MDI consumed most of the water; phosphating produces most of the waste water, while parts like shell and insulation produce most of the soil emission and waterborne emission. In addition our research results also show that production of more energy-efficient refrigerators will consume more resources during the manufacturing phase, but from the life-cycle perspective, it is beneficial to the environment.We have also conducted Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) of the refrigerator; evaluation results show that during the life cycle of refrigerator, the resource consumption is its main impact on the environment, particularly the consumption of fossil resources.We make improvement suggestions for refrigerator manufacturing stage by conducting sensitivity analysis and economic analysis. For the refrigerator disposal stage, we compare the waste refrigerator treatment processes in developed country and China's waste home appliance recycling pilot project, through which we figure out the recycling technologies in developed country is not suitable for China due to high investment.At the end of this paper we summarized our research; some recommendations are also made for future research.