Life-cycle assessment of engineered nanomaterials: A literature review of assessment status
Abstract
The potential environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs), and their engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), have, in recent years, been a cause of concern. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a highly qualified tool to assess products and systems and has an increasing extent been applied to ENMs. However, still only 29 case studies on LCA of ENMs have been published in journals and this article investigates these studies. Generally, data on production of ENMs as well as the coverage of the life cycle are limited. In particular, within use and disposal stages data are scarce due to many unknowns regarding the potential release and fate of ENMs/ENPs to and in the environment. This study investigates the sensitivity of case studies with respect to ecotoxicity impacts through a quantification of the potential ecotoxicity impacts to algae, daphnia and fish as a result of direct release of Ag and TiO 2 ENPs (mainly
Info
Journal Article, 2014
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
