Life Cycle Assessment of an electronic pump: focus on mineral and metallic resources

This paper aims to evaluate the environmental performance of an electronically controlled pump produced in Italy through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. The analysis covers all life cycle stages, from raw material extraction to production, use phase, and final disposal, including all related transport. The LCA is conducted according to the international standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, and the results are expressed in terms of eleven impact categories, using the CML-IA v4.8 2016 method, with a focus on one year of operation and ten years (service life). For the one- year scenario, the production and processing of raw materials dominate all categories, while for the entire life, the use phase (related to electricity consumption) has the highest contribution across all categories. The category with the highest contribution from raw material production is "Abiotic resource depletion – minerals and metals"; and therefore, the types of materials responsible for this impact are further examined. Given the large number of components in the analyzed pump, the materials are grouped into metals, plastics, ceramics, composites, electronics, and others. The analysis reveals that electronic materials have the dominant impact, followed by metals. Despite their low weight in the total product, electronics contribute over 50% to the "Abiotic resource depletion – minerals and metals" category due to the presence of gold and silver, while copper is the primary contributor to the impact in the case of metals. Focusing on mineral and metal resources, an additional impact assessment is performed using methods other than CML-IA, based on different characterization models and their associated factors. This approach highlights the dominant resources through various methods, emphasizing potential similarities or differences in the results.