A screening LCA on the recycling chlorinated pilgering oil

Abstract: In the metalworking industry lubricants are used for   production. For production of seamless stainless steel pipes Sandvik   Materials Technology uses chlorinated pilgering oil, a lubricant produced   from paraffin and chlorine. Today these lubricants are disposed by   incineration when the lubricant is too contaminated so production drops, and   the lubricant is replaced by new lubricant. RecondOil found a solution to clean   these oils instead of disposing them. To assess the environmental impact for   the process of cleaning a screening Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was   conducted. The functional unit used is the amount of chlorinated pilgering   oil used per year, and impact categories were chosen to be Global Warming   Potential (GWP) and Acidification Potential (AP). The study was conducted for   the impact from cradle to grave. The outcome of the LCA showed that the main   impact for GWP comes from the disposal phase for the conventional process,   which is incineration. For the cleaning and reusing process major impacts   where found to be from the transportation of raw materials, half-fabricates,   products and waste. It was found that only transportation had a major impact   on AP. The results show that for both GWP and AP the recycling process has   lower potential emissions than the conventional method, but further research   on for example electricity and chlorine production is needed to compose a   better comparison of the two processes from a life cycle perspective.