EBT 447: MATERIALS SELECTION AND DESIGN

LECTURE 4:
MATERIALS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Contents

Introduction
Green Technology
The Material Life-Cycle
Material and Energy-Consumption
System
The Eco-Attributes of Materials
Eco-Selection
Case Studies
Conclusions
Introduction

All human activity has some impact on the

environment.
The environment has some capacity to cope with this, so
that a certain level of impact can be absorbed
without lasting damage.
But it is clear that current human activities exceed this

threshold with increasing frequency, diminishing

the quality of the world in which we now live and
threatening the well-being of future generations.
 Design for the
environment

Design for sustainability

 Design for the environment is generally interpreted
as the effort to adjust our present design methods
to correct known, measurable, environmental
degradation; the time scale of this thinking is 10
years or so, an average products expected life.

Design for sustainability is the longer view: that of

adaptation to a lifestyle that meets present needs
without compromising the needs of future
generations.
Green Technology

The technology is environmentally friendly and is created and used in

a way that conserves natural resources and the environment.
green technology being referred to as
You may hear

environmental technology and clean

technology.
Green technology is a field of new, innovative
ways to make changes in daily life. Currently, this clean
technology is in the beginning stages of its
development, so the future will only bring bigger and better
things for this field.
Green Technology
Green technology is the future of this society. Its main goal is
to find ways to produce technology in ways that do not
damage or deplete the earths natural resources.

It as an alternative resource of technology that

reduces fossils fuels and demonstrates less damage to human,
animal, and plant health, as well as damage to the world, in general.
Next, green technology products can be reused and recycled.
The use of green technology (clean technology) is suppose to reduce
the amount of waste and pollution that is created during
production and consumption.
 The Material Life-Cycle

The nature of
the problem is
brought into
focus by
examining the
material life-
cycle shown in
the sketch in
the Figure 15.1.
The Material Life-Cycle

Based on the figure

o Ore and feedstock are mined and processed to yield a material

o These are manufactured into a product that is used and at the end

of its life, discarded or recycled.

o Energy and materials are consumed in each phase, generating

waste heat and solid, liquid and gaseous emissions.

Material and Energy-Consuming System
The Eco-Attributes of Materials
Melting
To melt a material, it must first be heated to its melting point,
requiring a minimum input of the heat Cp (T m T0), and then caused
to melt, requiring the latent heat of melting Lm:

where Hmin is the minimum energy per kilogram for melting,

Cp is the specific heat,
Tm is the melting point, and
T0 is the ambient temperature.
Melting
A close correlation exists between Lm and Cp Tm:

and for metals and alloys Tm >> T0, giving

Assuming efficiency of 15%, the estimated energy to melt 1 kilogram

Hm is

the asterisk recalling that it is an estimate. For metals and alloys, the
quantity Hm lies in the range 1 to 8 MJ/kg.
Vaporization
As a rule of thumb, the latent heat of vaporization L v is larger than that
for melting, Lm, by a factor of 24 + 5, and the boiling point Tb is larger
than the melting point Tm by a factor 2.1 +0.5.

an estimate for the energy to evaporate 1 kg of material (as in PVD

processing) to be

again assuming an efficiency of 15%. For metals and alloys, the

quantity Hv lies in the range 6 to 60 MJ/kg.
Deformation
Deformation processes like rolling or forging generally
involve large strains. Assuming an average flow strength of
y + uts/2, a strain of order 1, and an efficiency factor of
15%, we find, the work of deformation per kg, to be;

where y is the yield strength and

uts is the tensile strength.

For metals and alloys, the quantity W*D lies in the range
0.05 to 2 MJ/kg.
End of Life
Eco-Selection
Eco-Selection

Rational design for the environment starts with an analysis of the

phase of life to be targeted
This decision then guides the methods of selection to minimize the
impact of these phase on the environment.
The strategies are:
o The material production phase
o The product manufacture phase
o The use phase
o The product disposal phase
The product manufacture phase

Shaping materials requires energy

Certainly it is important to save energy in production
But, higher priority often attached to the local impact of emissions
and toxic waste during manufacture, and this depends crucially on
local circumtances.
The use phase

The eco-impact of the use phase of energy-consuming products has

nothing to do with the energy content of the materials themselves-
indeed, minimizing this may frequently have to opposite effect on
use energy.
Use energy depends on mechanical, thermal and electrical
efficiencies; it is minimized by maximizing these
Fuel efficiency in transport systems (measured by MJ/km)
correlates closely with mass of the vehicle itself; the objective then
becomes minimizing mass.
The use phase

Energy efficiency in refrigerator or heating systems are achieved by

minimizing the heat flux into or out of the systems; objective is then
minimizing thermal conductivity or thermal inertia.

Energy efficiency in electrical generation, transmission, and

conversion is maximized by minimizing ohm losses in the
conductor, here the objective is minimizing electrical resistance
while meeting necessary constraints on strength, cost and so on.
CASE STUDY: DRINK CONTAINER
The product disposal phase

The environment consequences of the final phase of product life has

many aspects.
Legislation dictates disposal procedures, take-back and recycle
requirements and through landfill taxes and subsidized recycling
deploy market forces to determine the end-life choice.
CASE STUDY: DRINK CONTAINER

The containers shown earlier in Figure 15.6 are examples of

products for which the first and second phases of lifematerial
production and product manufactureconsume the most energy
and generate the most emissions. Thus material selection to
minimize energy and consequent gas and particle emissions focuses
on these.
CASE STUDY: DRINK CONTAINER
Let think.

The masses of five competing container types, the material of which

they are made, and the specific energy content of each are listed in
15.4 and 15.5. Their production involves moulding or deformation;
approximate energies for each are listed. All five materials can be
recycled.
Which container type carries the lowest overall
energy penalty per unit of fluid contained?
 A comparison of the energies in Table 15.5 shows that the energy
to shape the container is always less than that to produce the
material in the first place.
Only in the case of glass is the forming energy significant. The
dominant phase is material production.
Summing the two energies for each material and multiplying by
the container mass per liter of capacity gives the ranking shown in
the second to last column of Table 15.4.
Steel can carry the lowest energy penalty, glass and aluminum
the highest.
Conclusion
Rational selection of materials to meet environmental objectives starts by
identifying the phase of product life that causes the greatest concern:
production, manufacture, use, or disposal.
Dealing with all of these requires data not only for the obvious eco-attributes
(e.g., energy, CO2 and other emissions, toxicity, and the ability to be
recycled) but also for mechanical, thermal, electrical, and chemical
properties.
Thus if material production is the phase of concern, selection is based on
minimizing production energy or the associated emissions (e.g., CO2
production).
But if it is the use phase that is of concern, selection is based instead on light
weight and excellence as a thermal insulator or as an electrical conductor
(while meeting other constraints on stiffness, strength, cost, etc.).