Environmental and economic life cycle assessment of foundry molding sands

Foundry plays an important role in the manufacturing industry. Many products produced by the casting method are used in many manufacturing processes. Turkish casting industry ranks second in Europe and seventh in the world with a production of 3 million tons. The amount of casting molding sand used in casting production products is also gradually increasing. It harms human health from obtaining the raw material of foundry molding sand, from the production stages, to the process of storage and to human health. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used for loss of environmental damage and sustainability. LCA includes the detection, reporting, recording and content of explosions that occur in every period from the cradle to the grave. It is important to determine the total cost of feeding and operating the foundry molding sand throughout its lifetime and to conduct cost analyzes for its sustainability. Life cycle cost analysis (LCC) is the sum of the costs of manufacturing, designing, operating, operating and disposing of the product, describing all the life details of a product or system. In this thesis; By determining the regime and economic solutions of green casting molding sand and resin casting molding sand by LCA methods, product installation with the lowest economic and growth impact and a sustainable, economical model can be solved. OpenLCA software was preferred in the study. In conclusion; In LCA, 15 interest effects were evaluated, and the harms of resin casting molding sand were determined more in all categories. Of the 15 environmental impact categories, total electricity consumption (generated from coal and natural gas electricity generation) and transportation by maddening trucks and tankers are the ones that raise the most potential. In the LCC results, it was determined that the cost of resin casting molding sand was higher than green casting molding sand. In LCC results, the cost of resin molding sand was more than 2.2 times that of green molding sand.