ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Life Cycle Assessment of Different
Nitrogen-Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide
Production Routes within Early Research
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1
Taiyuan Institute of Technology No.31, Xinlan Road, Jiancaoping District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
2
The Research Center for Eco-Environment Science in Shanxi Province,
No.24, Sanqiang ST, Xinghualing District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
3
Business College of Shanxi University, Junyao Lu, 16 km, Taiyu Road, Xiaodian District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
4
Taiyuan University of Technology, No.79 West Yingze ST, Wanbailing District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
Submission date: 2020-05-18
Final revision date: 2020-07-17
Acceptance date: 2020-07-20
Online publication date: 2020-11-26
Publication date: 2021-02-05
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(2):1601-1609
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ABSTRACT
Nitrogen-doped Reduced Graphene Oxide (N-rGO) has raised tremendous interest in water
treatment owing to its fascinating properties. There are two main ways to synthesis N-rGO, which is
hydrothermal method (HM) and annealing method (AM) in water treatment field. But as an efficient
catalyst in water treatment, the process of N-rGO production also has some environmental impacts.
This study assesses the life cycle environmental impacts of N-rGO produced by HM and AM, and
explore the implications of varying the key production parameters with a thorough sensitivity analysis.
The results show that the environmental impacts of HM is higher than that of AM, so AM route is more
available to scale-up production than HM route. For AM route, electricity reduction is the most efficient
way to decrease the environmental impacts, and the next is ethanol recovery. For HM route, ethanol
recovery is the most efficient way to decrease the environmental impacts, and the next is electricity
reduction.