Life Cycle Assessment Of Hand Dryer: GaBi Software

Estimated weight of each of the components used

Life cycle assessment provides a detailed information on how a product actually impacts the environment and the way it enables the assessors to assess the products footprint. The chosen service for the study is a hand dryer and the two alternatives chosen are the Dyson hand dryers and Mitsubishi hand dryers. The most environment friendly option chosen for the life cycle assessment of hand dryer is the GaBi software. It is important to note that an average hand dryer uses electricity of about 0.019 kilowatt hours and the time taken is generally 30 seconds. Also, a total of 2,200 watts are required to power a hand dryer. This equals to about 27 pounds of carbon dioxide emission and it equals to drying hands for 3 times.

According to the ISO 14040, the various stages of the life cycle assessment includes:

• Extraction and upstream production
• Manufacture
• Use
• Recycle or disposal

The various phases or the portions of the life cycle assessment include the following:

• Goal and scoping
• Inventory analysis
• Impact analysis
• Last step is the interpretation which includes the assessment of all the three phases (Buyle, Braet and Audenaert 2013).

Table of components (Joseph et al. 2015)

The functional unit is a vital element for life cycle assessment and it needs to be defined clearly. The functional unit provides a measure of the unit and the functions of a unit studied. Defining a functional unit provides a reference to both the output and the input and this can be related. The functional unit provides hand drying instances of 100,000 times (Buxel, Esenduran and Griffin 2015).

The global warming potential for 100 years is calculated and the it totalled around 119 kg carbon dioxide equivalent, and the global warming potential from the cargo air plane is calculated to be 103 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (figure 2). The ozone layer depletion potential is found to be a total of 1.5e^-9 (figure 3). The eutrophication potential for the hand dryer unit is found to be totalling around 0.07 kg phosphate equivalent (figure 4). The acidification potential for the hand dryer is found to be totalling around 0.4 kg SO₂ equivalent.

From the GaBi software analysis of the life cycle assessment it can be inferred that the individual components contribute about 0.01 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent of emission, the electricity grid mix has a 0.03 Kg of carbon dioxide equivalent of emission. It is important to highlight that transport alone contributes to the majority of the global warming potential. The cargo plane contributes the most of the carbon dioxide emission with an average of 102.91 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (figure 2). The materials used in the manufacture of the hand dryer has contributed about 0.001e-9 kg R11 ozone layer depletion potential. While the electric grid mix contributes about 0.641e-9 kg R11 equivalent of ozone layer depletion potential (figure 3). The materials used in the manufacture of the hand dryer contributes zero eutrophication potential of Kg Phosphate equivalent. The cargo plane and the kerosene fuel used in the transport contributes to the eutrophication potential (figure 4). Similarly, the materials used in the manufacture of the hand dryer does not contribute to the acidification potential. Here also, the cargo plane and kerosene used for transportation contributes to the acidification potential.

Well defined functional unit

It is seen from the life cycle assessment study that the materials that is used in the manufacture of had dryer contributes minimally to the environment. The remedial measures suggested for each of the process will contribute to the reduction of the ozone layer potential arising from the electricity mix grid, aluminium profile, aluminium extraction and diesel mix at the refinery. Instead of using the using the aluminium parts in the hand dryer, bio-degradable plastics can be used to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and at the same time reduce the ozone layer depletion potential (Jung et a;. 2013).

Here, after the analysis the aluminium extract and aluminium profile are both contributing to the global warming potential and ozone layer depletion potential. Thus, it is important to note that instead of using the aluminium in the hand dryer, plastics can be used that are bio-degradable or that can be recycled later. It is thus important to mention that plastics will contribute to lesser global warming potential and lesser ozone depletion potential (Modaresi et al. 2014).

Conclusion

Thus, from the above discussion it can be concluded that the in the life cycle assessment of the hand dryer, there are certain components in the manufacturing process that leads to the increased emission of carbon dioxide and it acts to play a contributory role in the global warming potential and ozone depletion potential. Aluminium profiles and the aluminium extract is found to impact the environment negatively. Thus, plastic can be used alternatively to reduce both the global warming and the ozone layer depletion potential. Also, the transport fuel (kerosene) and the cargo airplane in the transport of the finished products impacts the environment negatively.

Reference

Buxel, H., Esenduran, G. and Griffin, S., 2015. Strategic sustainability: Creating business value with life cycle analysis. Business Horizons, 58(1), pp.109-122.

Buyle, M., Braet, J. and Audenaert, A., 2013. Life cycle assessment in the construction sector: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 26, pp.379-388.

Joseph, T., Baah, K., Jahanfar, A. and Dubey, B., 2015. A comparative life cycle assessment of conventional hand dryer and roll paper towel as hand drying methods. Science of the Total Environment, 515, pp.109-117.

Jung, K.W., Kawahito, Y., Takahashi, M. and Katayama, S., 2013. Laser direct joining of carbon fiber reinforced plastic to aluminum alloy. Journal of Laser Applications, 25(3), p.032003.

Modaresi, R., Pauliuk, S., Løvik, A.N. and Mu?ller, D.B., 2014. Global carbon benefits of material substitution in passenger cars until 2050 and the impact on the steel and aluminum industries. Environmental science & technology, 48(18), pp.10776-10784.