Das Life Cycle Assessment und die Kostenabschätzung zur methodischen Weiterentwicklung des Life Cycle Process Design. Demonstriert an der Entwicklung eines neuartigen Bioraffineriekonzepts.

The current work aims to further develop the Life Cycle Process Design (LCPD) method by practically applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a cost estimation for an innovative biorefinery process for the conversion of crustaceous shells into biopolyamide. It is shown that it is applicable to influence process development in early development stages through applying LCA and cost estimation to advance the ecological and economic sustainability of innovative process concepts. Further it is found that the applied methods for ecological evaluation and cost estimation are suitable for an application which accompanies process development and allows their early application to show new, less-considered developmental directions of the researched biorefinery process. The central aspect of the methodological development of the LCPD is to apply both the LCA and cost analysis at all stages of the process development. The methodology and the available data basis are to be successively detailed in accordance with the Technology Readiness Level (TRL). Finally it is possible to reach an environmentally and economically optimized result for the process under investigation, if LCA and methods for cost analyses is applied in an iterative way all the way from TRL 1 to 9.