LCA of nanomaterials

Question

Hi, I'm starting a project related to the life cycle of nanomaterials and I have noticed that the most common database used in this field is the Ecoinvent. In this sense I am considering to purchase it, however I would like your opinion first about using the openLCA with the Ecoinvent database. Do you think I will be able to perform the nanomaterials assessment or should I buy the SimaPro software in order to obtain reliable results? Thank you very much!

Kind regards,

Carla

Answer 1

Hi Carla,

Nanomaterials are of course somewhat difficult to model in LCA and it is not easy to find a good LCA database I think, and you can even think whether LCA as method alone is able to reflect the environmental impacts, altough there is of course prominent support for this (see https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_32, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-013-0698-6, e.g.) - ecoinvent is often used in these studies, and we provide it as SimaPro does it, thus the choice of the LCA tool here does not make your study more or less reliable (apart from that you can do more detailed analyses and quality calculations in openLCA, I would say, and there is a broader choice of data available for openLCA).

Good luck and best wishes,

Andreas

Comments

Hi Andreas,

Thank you very much for your answer. I know that it is not easy to find a good database but I think the Ecoinvent will be the most appropriate one in combination with other sources/methods.
It’s good to know your opinion about the quality calculations in openLCA because I have the same opinion but a friend of mine put me in doubt.
For instance, for the purchase of the Ecoinvent database, what is the most adequate way to proceed? Should I buy directly on the Ecoinvent website or is it better to buy on the nexus.openlca? Also, I have doubts about registering a non-Nexus licence because I don’t know for what purpose I will need a registration. Could you please clarify that to me?
Thank you again!

Best regards,
Carla