Life cycle assessment of coir fiber-reinforced composites for automotive applications

Wasti, Sanjita; Kamath, Dipti; Armstrong, Kristina; Clarkson, Caitlyn; Tekinalp, Halil; Ozcan, Soydan; Vaidya, Uday

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.144368

Life cycle assessment of coir fiber-reinforced composites for automotive applications

Journal Article · Tue Dec 03 00:00:00 EST 2024 · Journal of Cleaner Production

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.144368· OSTI ID:2483443

Wasti, Sanjita ^[1]; ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[2]; Tekinalp, Halil ^[2]; ^[2]; Vaidya, Uday ^[3]

Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), Knoxville, TN (United States)

Past decades have seen an increasing prevalence of natural fiber-reinforced composites (NFRCs) due to growing conscientiousness around sustainability and a push towards vehicle lightweighting. The environmentally friendly and sustainable claims of NFRCs need to be validated due to their large variability and variety, particularly where material substitutions are concerned, such as in substituting glass fiber with natural fiber. Additionally, the objective of this work is to determine the cumulative energy demand (CED) and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with an automotive part (of volume 0.001 m3) made from 40 wt% coir fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) and compared with a similar part made from 40 wt% glass fiber reinforced PP. SimaPro v. 9.0.0.49 was used for the analysis, whereas inventory data were collected from databases, such as Ecoinvent 3, Transportation Energy Databook, Greet model 2022, and published papers. The results showed that CED and GHG associated with the coir fiber-reinforced composite part were lower than the glass fiber-reinforced composite part for both cradle-to-gate (~34–40%) and cradle-to-grave (excluding end-of-life) (~24%) analysis.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 2483443

Journal Information:: Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal Name: Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 485; ISSN 0959-6526

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Automotive applications
Coir fiber-reinforced composites
Cumulative energy demand
Glass fiber-reinforced composites
Greenhouse gas emissions
Life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment of coir fiber-reinforced composites for automotive applications

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