LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF THE SELECTIVE CATALYTIC REDUCTION

This paper describes the overall reduction of the environmental impact by the use of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) determined by a inv estigation of the life cycle assessment of SCR systems for power plant s. The overall reduction of the environmental impact by the use of SCR was determined under consideration of the total product life cycle fr om manufacture of the starting materials through catalyst production a nd use in the powerplant to processing for recycling. Following clear specification of the overall system limits and definition of the goals for the analysis to be performed, the inventory analyses were determi ned for the individual process steps and in summary for the overall pr ocess cycle/sequence under consideration of basic SCR application vari ants in the power plant. The inventory analysis was used to generate t he impact assessment and improvement assessment. This work was perform ed using the concept given by Braunschweig, A., and Muller-Wenk, R. [5 ]. Other tools of environmental management of products and processes u sed were the methods of process cycle/sequence analysis, process input -output analysis and cumulative energy consumption or expenditure [14] .