92
5 Life Cycle Assessment of Chemical Products and Processes
v3.5 database (Wernet et al., 2016) will be used to calculate the impacts within
the midpoint categories of climate change, cumulative energy demand (CED), and
ecotoxicity.
Fig. 5.16 Schematic of the
entire system with only the
production and use of the
foaming agent highlighted in
gray as being within the
scope of this LCA
5.7.2 Inventory Analysis (Phase 2)
Table 5.3 shows information that was found to be available to describe the XPS
insulation itself and the two alternative foaming agents that can be used to produce
it: pentane and CO 2 .
Table 5.4 shows the resulting data found upon completing the inventory analysis
for each of the alternative foaming agents. Part A shows the calculated amount of
each foaming agent required for the production of the XPS insulation to achieve
the functional unit, and part B shows the calculated amount of each foaming agent
released over the expected 50-year lifetime of the XPS insulation once installed.
In Table 5.4, the amounts of foaming agent emitted over the course of the use
phase of the XPS insulation were calculated using the expected lifespan of XPS
insulation and the half-lives for each foaming agent as given in Table 5.3.