Examination of environmental impacts of construction chemicals in the scope of life cycle assessment

Many factors such as population growth, changing in consumption habits of people and increasing their needs have caused environmental problems. Nowadays, the extent of the destruction to the environment is expanding, so environmental problems attract the attention of the public. For these reasons, environmental policies have also started to be developed. The concept of sustainable development emerged with this awareness and started to affect the construction sector. Building materials have had negative effects on the environment throughout their lives. It is necessary to produce buildings with environmental sensitive approaches and to evaluate their environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method used to assess the environmental impact of materials or services at all stages of life. In the concept of thesis; thermal insulation materials widely used in the world and in Turkey were examined by using life cycle assessment method. These materials; Stone Wool, Glass Wool, Extruded Polystyrene Foam (XPS), Expanded Polystyrene Foam (EPS) and Polyurethane Foam (PUR). In the life cycles of these thermal insulation materials are evaluated released emission to the environment at different stages such as raw material supply, production, use, transportation and waste disposal. The environmental impacts of the chemicals used in the construction sector mainly arise from the production and raw material supply stages; energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are among the most important impacts, raw material consumption and waste generation depending on the material is also noteworthy. Accordingly, when considering the CO2 equivalent in terms of greenhouse gas emissions: Polyurethane > EPS > XPS > Glass Wool > Stone Wool emerges. When the unit costs of these chemicals in 2019 are taken into consideration; with a refund period of 8.4 years and a monthly net savings of 49.79 ŧ/m2, XPS has the highest value. The lowest monthly savings amount is 48,18 ŧ/m2 from stone wool and glass wool materials. Key words: Construction sector, Chemicals, Life cycle assessment, Carbon dioxide emission