The Life Cycle Assessment Of Plasterboard

FGD gypsum is a by-product derived from flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems at electric power plants. It is a gradually increasing solid waste emission in recent years. It is a good way to avoid the accumulation of land in use of FGD gypsum production of plasterboard. For example, if all the FGD gypsum emission in2008(33.36million ton)can be used in production of plasterboard,6250acres of land will be saved. At the same time, using FGD gypsum can also save valuable natural gypsum resources, and save the cost of transport, in line with China’s strategy of sustainable development and circular economy concept, has a important practical significance. The study of FGD gypsum is mainly focus on the performance of desulphurization technology and the properties of the products. There is a lot of literature demonstrated the feasibility of the use of FGD gypsum to replace the natural gypsum from the physical and chemical properties as well as economic point of view. However, the advantages and disadvantages compared with conventional gypsum throughout the life cycle environmental load condition, and specific manifestation of the environmental advantages of FGD gypsum plasterboard has not been reported.This study got two inventories of environmental load of the two kinds of gypsum plasterboard by the way of life cycle assessment. The energy consumption was28.9MJ/m2and28.2MJ/m2respectively for the natural gypsum plasterboard and FGD gypsum plasterboard. The calcining and drying stages accounted for73.5%and81.9%of the total energy consumption of the two kinds of gypsum plasterboard’s life cycle; The major pollutants of the two kinds of gypsum plasterboard was CO2, accounted for2.43kg/m2and2.41kg/m2, and mostly of them came from the calcining and drying stages of energy use.Building on the available method for the gypsum plasterboard, this paper analyzed environmental impact of the two gypsum plasterboard from the Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Photochemical Oxidation Potential (POCP), Human Toxicity (HT) and A-biotic Depletion Potential (ADP).The results showed that the environmental impact of the two gypsum plasterboard was GWP>AP>POCP>HT>ADP. For natural gypsum plasterboard, the mainly two environmental impacts were the global warming effect and acidification effect which accounted for41.6%and35.7%respectively of the total environmental load of natural gypsum plasterboard. The largest load of natural gypsum plasterboard was the emission of CO2, which had41.6%contribution to the environmental impact of natural gypsum plasterboard, the second largest environmental load was the emission of SO2which accounted for38.8%. For FGD gypsum plasterboard, The global warming effect and acidification effect accounted for47.9%and36.7%respectively of the total environmental load of FGD gypsum plasterboard. The two largest load of FGD gypsum plasterboard were the emission of CO2and SO2, which accounted for43.6%and42.9%.Based on the research above, the two kinds of natural gypsum plasterboard and FGD plasterboard of the environmental impact were compared. The results showed that the total life cycle environmental load of the natural gypsum plasterboard. was6%higher than the FGD gypsum plasterboard Among them, human toxicity effect increased by72%and a-biotic depletion effect increased by76%.Finally, this paper analyzed production process of the two gypsum plasterboard which had a larger environmental impact, and took some suggestions to improve the environmental impact of them from the technical and pollution prevention angles, in order to improve the environmental performance of the two gypsum plasterboard.