Hybrid risk-based LCA to improve the Acid Gas to Syngas (AG2S™) process

Sustainable development has become the cornerstone of environmental policy worldwide and a leading principle for innovative industrial processes. The philosophy lies in the progress in balance with nature that ensures the existing productive systems' survival through a new design paradigm shift. Even in the industrial framework, the sustainability concept should always drive technological innovation. The blended Life Cycle (LCA) and Risk assessment (RA) can accomplish this demanding goal to highlight the process's potential health and environmental impacts. LCA is the process that analyses and assesses the environmental impact of a material, product, or service throughout its entire life cycle. RA instead assesses imposed risks by inherent hazards of systems and substances both qualitatively or quantitatively. Different approaches typically drive LCA and RA, respectively a deterministic and a stochastic approach. This feature usually causes an unconnected use of LCA and RA quantifying the potential impact of products and processes and thus determines controversial decisions concerning a balance between environmental impacts and operational risks. The new paradigm suggests a unified blended LCA - RA approach with preliminary hazard identification, initially applied to an innovative Acid Gas to Syngas (AG2S™) process for carbon dioxide emission reduction and on-site reuse, avoiding costly and hazardous waste transportation steps.