Kuartz yüzey üretimi için yaşam döngüsü analizi

One of the most prevalent minerals in the Earth's crust is quartz, which is consisted of silicon dioxide. It is one of the hardest natural material and, it is scratch and stain resistant, and non-porous. Bacteria and mold do not grow easily on quartz counters; therefore, it is widely used for kitchen and bathroom counters. In quartz surface production, quartz, mirror and glass fracture, seashell, silicon carbide, resin, pigment, some catalysts, and cobalt is used as raw materials. Natural gas, electricity, and water is used in the production processes. Water is mainly consumed in polishing step and wastewater is produced during this process. In addition to wastewater, solid wastes including rubbles, sludge, packing material, and air emissions are produced in this sector. In the scope this thesis, determination of environmental impacts of quartz surface manufacturing was aimed. A pilot plant, which production capacity is one million m2 of quartz surface per year, was chosen for this aim. To evaluate the environmental effects of the plant, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was used. Functional unit was selected to be m2 of surface production. Raw material transportation, quartz surface production, and wastewater treatment phases were taken into consideration in the LCA analysis. All input and output of each phases was determined for the pilot plant. The LCA studies were carried out using the GaBi Software (Thinkstep, Germany). CML 2001 (Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University) impact assessment method was used to evaluate the environmental impacts.