Pucciarelli, Martina; (2023) Life Cycle Thinking for the sustainability assessment of nanoparticles’ manufacturing and applications. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The transition towards a sustainable society and the ability to respect both social rights and foundations and ecological constraints requires policies that are able to trigger new production and consumption patterns. Technological development plays an important role in this scenario. Indeed, new technologies can help in lowering environmental emissions and resource consumption. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) has been identified as a systematic and holistic approach to assessing the sustainability of the life cycle of products and services from environmental, societal and economic perspectives. These types of assessments enable the transition towards a sustainable society, or at least help improve and select the best technologies to enable such transition. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Social-Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) represent the methodological and operational applications of the life cycle thinking approach. This thesis presents a journey into the employment and interplay of LCT methodologies to assess systems producing and goods integrating nanoparticles. Nanoparticles and their applications are one of the most intriguing technological developments of this century. Indeed, they can be used in relevant sectors as a stand-alone technology or to enable and/or enhance other technologies/applications. The EPSRC-funded project Manufacturing Advanced Functional Materials (MAFuMa) focuses on manufacturing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (IONPs), as these two materials have existing applications in diagnostics and therapeutics. The project aims to design and demonstrate a new bespoke approach for manufacturing high-value nanomaterials to be used in the healthcare sector. The approach would allow manufacturers to synthesise nanoparticles in a controllable and reproducible way without involving difficulties in the upscaling the process. The research presented in this thesis focuses on applying life cycle thinking to the advancements in the field of gold nanoparticles, involving new synthesis approaches and their utilisation as an enhancing agent of antimicrobial solution. Because one of the main objectives of the MAFuMa project at UCL was to design economical and sustainable approaches to manufacture highly valuable nanoparticles, the life cycle thinking approach was chosen to carry out this research. The research begins with integrating life cycle assessment and life cycle costing to evaluate, compare and support the design of two methods for synthesising gold nanoparticles. After that, 5 both synthesis methods of nanoparticles, in this specific case, nanoclusters, and their application in a product are assessed. The life cycle of an antimicrobial keyboard cover integrating gold nanoclusters is assessed using the LCC and the LCA. In addition, an attempt to assess the absolute environmental sustainability of the systems under study is presented. To conclude this journey, a social life cycle assessment is performed. This enables the identification of the social hotspots associated with the antimicrobial keyboard cover production and allows for an understanding of which suppliers perform better from a social point of view and, thus, which ones should be considered when defining the supply chain. The employment of LCA, LCC and S-LCA to assess systems with a low technological readiness level (TRL) to produce gold nanoparticles and products integrating gold nanoparticles has enabled an understanding of the challenges involved in evaluating such specific systems. Furthermore, from a higher level, it has assisted in understanding the challenges and opportunities of using the three methodologies in concert. Indeed, one of the outcomes of this work is a framework that can be employed when assessing technologies with low TRL through LCA, LCC and S-LCA.

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