Life cycle assessment of mobile phone housing

Article type: Research Article

Authors: YANG, Jian-xin | WANG, Ru-song | FU, Hao | LIU, Jing-ru

Affiliations: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China |

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: yangjx@mail.rcees.ac.cn

Abstract: The life cycle assessment of the mobile phone housing in Motorola (China) Electronics Ltd. was carried out, in which materials flows and environmental emissions based on a basic production scheme were analyzed and assessed. In the manufacturing stage, such primary processes as polycarbonate molding and surface painting are included, whereas different surface finishing technologies like normal painting, electroplate, IMD and VDM etc. were assessed. The results showed that housing decoration plays a significant role within the housing life cycle. The most significant environmental impact from housing production is the photochemical ozone formation potential.Environmental impacts of different decoration techniques varied widely, for example, the electroplating technique is more environmentally friendly than VDM. VDM consumes much more energy and raw material. In addition, the results of two altemative scenarios of dematerialization showed that material flow analysis and assessment is very important and valuable in selecting an environmentally friendly process.

Keywords: life cycle assessment (LCA), housing production, dematerialization ,

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 100-103, 2004