WORK IN PROCESS – N°3

WORK IN PROCESS

Step into the daily lives of the Processium teams through a series of interviews that give voice to those who steer our projects every day. A deep dive into the know-how, journeys, and passion that drive our company forward.

N°3 – The Life Cycle Assessment

With a degree in chemical engineering from Brazil and a passion for environmental issues, Natalia now places LCA at the heart of her academic and professional career at Processium do Brasil. At the intersection of data, methodology, and strategy, she analyzes key issues to support more responsible decision-making. In this interview, she shares her vision of LCA, its central role, and the challenges ahead. Valuable insights into an indispensable tool for the transition.

I studied Chemical Engineering at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. I started my master’s in the same University in 2021 and plan to complete it in the coming years in parallel to my work at Processium.

During my time at university, I developed a strong interest in sustainability-related topics. I signed up for environmental education and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) courses and got involved in a campus program focused on raising environmental awareness among the academic community. Through these experiences, I gradually shaped my understanding of sustainability. One key takeaway was that sustainability is not just about individual consumer behavior, it is deeply linked to how we organize our society and economy as a whole.

This perspective strongly influenced both my academic path and my professional choices. My master’s thesis focuses on the “Life Cycle Assessment of a biorefinery process at early stage of development”, which is in line with Processium’s philosophy of considering sustainability as a key aspect of technology development.

I arrived at Processium do Brasil in 2019 as an intern at the end of my bachelor’s degree. During this period, I worked mostly on process engineering, focusing on process design and modeling. From the very beginning, I got involved in biobased process development projects. It was in line with what I was professionally searching for, so I was very happy to stay at Processium when I graduated as a process engineer.

By 2023, Processium created a work group to start incorporating Life Cycle Assessment into our work, and I have been very engaged in it since then. This evolution also aligns closely with my academic background and my interest in environmental issues, and I have now developed strong experience in this field through both my master’s studies and the various projects I have worked on at Processium.

For me, it was mainly a philosophical question. At first, I wanted to better understand the environmental claims made by companies about their technologies, because I knew they were complex and often based on assumptions that are not always clearly explained.

As I explored the topic further, I became interested not just in the claims themselves, but in how to assess sustainability in a structured and rigorous way. LCA provides a multicriteria methodology with measurable indicators, which makes sustainability assessments more robust. It also gives more meaning to the work we do as process engineers, by directly linking environmental evaluation with process development and supporting the selection of the best process option from an experimental standpoint.

LCA provides a comprehensive, multi-criteria view of how a product’s entire value chain impacts the environment, from raw material extraction to end of life.

Basically, LCA is a tool that diagnoses the environmental impact of a product or service. By environmental impact, we mean a range of indicators such as global warming potential, water consumption, fossil resource depletion, impact on human health, acidification, etc. Like any tool, it can be misused, but there are well-established scientific guidelines that ensure reliable results when applied correctly.

A Life Cycle Assessment can support clients at different moments of technology development. A Screening LCA can be applied to a process at early stage of development to support eco-design by providing initial insights on environmental hotspots in the value chain and identifying potential mitigation actions. It can also evaluate how the environmental performance of a certain technology compares to a benchmark.  A peer-reviewed, standardized LCA, on the other hand, provides a more detailed description of environmental impacts and ultimately enables the disclosure of the LCA results to the public, what can attract consumers and potential partners and investors.

As engineers working in R&D, we need to consider three key dimensions: technical, economic and environmental point of view. LCA brings the third element to the table, by identifying hotspots within the value chain, generating discussions on how to improve product sustainability, and providing information to support decisions-makers in business-related choices such as plant location, product application, and key suppliers.

LCA is conducted in 4 main steps, that are typically carried out in an iterative manner:

• Goal and scope definition

We first define with the client what product is being evaluated, including production steps, application, and end-of-life scenarios, as well as factors such as plant location, raw materials, and supply chains. We also define a benchmark product to compare results to, since environmental indicators like carbon footprint need a reference to be properly interpreted. For example, for a bio-based product, we usually compare its environmental impact to the fossil-based product on the market that it will likely replace.

• The life cycle inventory

This is essentially the mass and energy balance, and very often the most time-consuming step. We collect all inputs and outputs of the system, raw materials, utilities, emissions, waste, etc. Process engineering skills are especially relevant in this step because they enable a deeper understanding of process data.

• Life cycle impact assessment

Here, we “translate” the inventory into environmental impacts using life cycle impact assessment methods. For example, we calculate the impact of a gas emission in terms of global warming potential, ozone depletion, acidification potential, etc. Several standardized, internationally accepted methods are available. We then select with the client the most relevant method for each LCA study, based on the environmental categories to analyze and the context in which the results will be used.

• Interpretation phase

The main goal in this phase is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the technology under study and propose and evaluate solutions that could mitigate environmental hotspots. In our process development work, this step helps guide process improvements and sustainability strategies.

LCA is a tool and like every tool, it can be misused. If LCA is based on poor quality data and takes unrealistic assumptions, the results can be misleading. So, I would say that there are two main challenges in conducting LCA:

• Assuring good data quality. At Processium, we work with technologies under development, so the process inventory is often based on engineering estimations or pilot plant operation rather than the mass and energy balance of an existing industrial-scale plant, with key choices made based on Processium’s expertise in process development. So, we need to be aware of uncertainties related to process development and make sure we communicate them properly.
• Defining realistic assumptions to model productive processes outside the system boundaries. It is associated with the modeling of what we call “background processes”, that consist in all the links in the supply chain that are not under the control of the company that commissioned the study, or for which data specific to the process under study is not available. Although the background processes, such as raw materials supply and post-use product disposal, are outside the system boundaries of the study, their impact on LCA results is often very expressive. So, realistic modeling of the background system is key, but can also be quite challenging because it often requires a multi-disciplinary vision.

LCA is progressively more important in the industry in the context of transition to a more sustainable economy – which is becoming more imperative given the recent intensification of the climate crisis and geopolitical uncertainties regarding the oil and gas supply.

On one hand, LCA plays an important role in standardizing the estimation and communication of environmental benefits of new products and technologies. Nowadays, having a robust LCA is key to applying for governmental subsidies, attracting partners and investors, and meeting the demands of consumers who are increasingly environmentally conscious.

On the other hand, LCA, as well as other environmental assessment methods (carbon footprint, water footprint, etc), are tools at the disposal of the industry that, if applied in early stages of technology development can be a competitive advantage since they allow for more informed decision-making and assertive investments. In summary, LCA can give essential support to a genuine pursuit of sustainability in their R&D efforts.