Implementing sustainability in laboratory: Life Cycle Assessment of membrane materials for hydrogen separation

Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies addressed to identify the hot spots of experimental activities can be a suitable tool for supporting the design, the optimization, and the sustainability of processes at the laboratory-scale, even when Technology Readiness Level is low (<4). In this work, a "cradle to gate" LCA was carried out analyzing the compositions of innovative metallic membranes for hydrogen separation. More specifically, several dense multilayered film membranes (where Pd was completely or partially substituted with Cr, V, Ti, and Zr) were modelled as a function of the H2 permeability. The resulting environmental impacts were compared with those related to the Pd77Ag23 film membrane, considered as the reference material (Barison et al., 2018; Fasolin et al., 2022, 2018). The results showed as the partial substitution of Pd can efficiently lead to the decrease of the membrane composition environmental impacts, providing a useful insight of the environmental sustainability of critical raw materials employed in this peculiar technology field.