LCA Case Studies

Synthetic sulfuric acid is used in wide range of applications in fine chemical industry. Despite an already performed optimization of input amounts, used sulfuric acid is still a quantitatively important waste by-product. As a result, different utilization technologies for used sulfuric acid exists:
1. production of gypsum
2. thermal reductive cracking
3. thermal cracking and oxidation
This makes an LCA study of this waste by-product quite interesting. In this paper:
? the starting point for a comparative LCA of the above mentioned utilization technologies at a concrete situation is explained, in a work of Ciba-Geigy Corp.
? a short summary of the comparative LCA is presented
? lessons learned from performing the LCA and using it in a decision process are described.