Life cycle based alternatives assessment (LCAA) for chemical substitution

Not only safer but also more sustainable chemistries! To address an important gap across existing tools for chemical substitution, a new approach was published in Green Chemistry External link. by a team around Professor Peter Fantke from the Technical University of Denmark.

In their Life cycle based alternatives assessment (LCAA) approach, they propose a tiered and rapid-screening substitution approach that is able to consider quantitative performance indicators for human and ecological exposure, chemical supply chain aspects and product life cycle impacts. With that, Fantke et al. enable to screen various potential alternatives to a harmful chemicals but also allow to identify best-in-class options across new chemical and material designs.

The next step to operationalize this framework is now to integrate this approach into existing substitution frameworks to complement their indicators with performance for economic and technical performance. And after that to test their approach in real-life case studies to identify further research needs.

Read the article here. External link, opens in new window.

The article was also included in the 2020 Green Chemistry Hot Articles collection. External link, opens in new window.