Water Footprint Assessment of Selected Polymers, Polymer Blends, Composites, and Biocomposites for Industrial Application
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Experimental
2.1. Aims and Scope of Analysis
2.2. Methodology of Water Footprint Calculation
- • establishing of goals and scope of analysis,
- • accounting of water footprint,
- • assessment of water footprint sustainability,
- • formulation of water footprint response.
- Relevance—all applied methods and data gathered for quantitative determination of environmental footprints of product should be relevant to analysis.
- Completeness—during quantitative determination of footprints, all material and energy flows, as well as other aspects, which are necessary for the compatibility with boundaries of analyzed system and requirements for the analysis and applied methods, should be considered.
- Integrity—during all steps of environmental footprint assessment of the product, compatibility with proper methodology should be maintained in order to increase integrity of analysis and comparability with similar works.
- Accuracy—all uncertainties of the system and its modelling, as well as reports related to the analysis should be limited.
- Clarity—information related to the environmental footprint of the product should be revealed in the manner that provides the recipients basis for decision-making and enables interested parties’ evaluation of their reliability and credibility.
2.3. Input Data
- polymerization of propylene is performed with 95% yield,
- 75% of the production is based on suspension polymerization,
- 25% of the production is based on gas phase polymerization,
- for both types of polymerization, 4 MJ of electric energy per kg of PP and 4 MJ of thermal energy is required.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Water Footprint of EUR-Pallet
3.2. Water Footprint of Applied Raw Materials
3.2.1. Polypropylene
3.2.2. Poly(lactic acid)
3.2.3. Cotton Fibers
3.2.4. Jute Fibers
3.2.5. Kenaf Fibers
3.2.6. Glass Fibers
3.2.7. Summary
4. Conclusions
- proper management of waste generated during plastics production, which could be recycled and partially introduced into stream of raw materials, reducing the use of primary resources,
- introduction of continuous processes instead of periodic ones, which could enhance the ecological and economical aspects of production processes, e.g., reduce the amount of water required for production and additional operations, such as purification of fillers modified in a periodic manner with the use of various organic or inorganic solvents,
- creating added value for waste materials, which are currently not utilized, e.g., various types of waste from food industry, which could be applied as source of lignocellulosic fillers in the manufacturing of wood polymer composites.
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Component | Variant | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PP | PP/PLA | PP/CF | PP/JF | PP/KF | PP/GF | |
Content, wt % | ||||||
Polypropylene | 100 | 70 | 70 | 70 | 70 | 90 |
Poly(lactic acid) | - | 30 | - | - | - | - |
Cotton fibers | - | - | 30 | - | - | - |
Jute fibers | - | - | - | 30 | - | - |
Kenaf fibers | - | - | - | - | 30 | - |
Glass fibers | - | - | - | - | - | 10 |
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Korol, J.; Hejna, A.; Burchart-Korol, D.; Chmielnicki, B.; Wypiór, K. Water Footprint Assessment of Selected Polymers, Polymer Blends, Composites, and Biocomposites for Industrial Application. Polymers 2019, 11, 1791. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11111791
Korol J, Hejna A, Burchart-Korol D, Chmielnicki B, Wypiór K. Water Footprint Assessment of Selected Polymers, Polymer Blends, Composites, and Biocomposites for Industrial Application. Polymers. 2019; 11(11):1791. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11111791
Chicago/Turabian StyleKorol, Jerzy, Aleksander Hejna, Dorota Burchart-Korol, Błażej Chmielnicki, and Klaudiusz Wypiór. 2019. "Water Footprint Assessment of Selected Polymers, Polymer Blends, Composites, and Biocomposites for Industrial Application" Polymers 11, no. 11: 1791. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11111791