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Life Cycle Assessment Paper

Decent Essays

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Life-cycle assessment is a tool for systematically analyzing environmental

performance of products or processes over their entire life cycle, including raw material

extraction, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life (EOL) disposal and recycling (Cabeza et.al.

2013). Hence, LCA is often considered a “cradle to grave” approach to the evaluation of

environmental impact.

The concept of life cycle studies has been developed over the years, mainly in the

70’s and 80’s. Moreover, life cycle studies had focused on the quantification of energy and

materials used and wastes released into the environment throughout the life cycle. With the

current push toward sustainable construction, LCA has gained importance as an …show more content…

STEEL

Steel is manufactured by the chemical reduction of iron ore, using an integrated steel

manufacturing process or a direct reduction process. In the conventional integrated steel

manufacturing process, the iron from the blast furnace is converted to steel in a basic oxygen

furnace (BOF). Steel can also be made in an electric arc furnace (EAF) from scrap steel and,

in some cases, from direct reduced iron. Pig iron is manufactured from sintered, pelletized, or

lump iron ores using coke and limestone in a blast furnace. It is then fed to a BOF in molten

form along with scrap metal, fluxes, alloys, and high-purity oxygen to manufacture steel

(www.environmentalexpert.com).

Broadly there are two steps in the manufacturing of steel: Pig iron making and Steel

making. Potential pollutants from steel industries briefly are as follows:

Air pollution

Sintering operations can emit significant dust levels of about 20 kilograms per

metric ton (kg/t) of steel. Pelletizing operations can emit dust levels of about 15 kg/t of steel.

Air emissions from pig iron manufacturing in a blast furnace include particulate …show more content…

Additionally, it also

includes Sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons carbon monoxide and

hydrogen fluoride.

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