(393b) Interaction Analysis in Multiscale Sustainability Assessment

Sustainability assessment is a key step towards achievement of industrial sustainability. Over the past two decades, numerous types of sustainability metrics and assessment methods have been developed, most of which are for the performance assessment of products, processes, plants, and beyond; from the multiscale systems science and engineering point of view, the assessment is at the macroscopic level. It is recognized that some types of sustainability problems associated with products and processes may be rooted at the meso- or even microscopic levels. For instance, some novel products using nanomaterials have been identified with various environmental and health problems and economic and social challenges. Those problems and challenges could and should be addressed during the product design stage at the much finer scales of length and time. Take nanopaint design and nanocoating manufacturing as an example, the selection, shape, orientation, and volume fraction of nanoparticles, the selection of polymer material, solvent and additives, and the interfacial phenomena between nanoparticles and polymer materials during nanomanufacturing are all related to the eventual sustainability performance at the macroscopic level. This renders a need for extending the sustainability assessment to the meso and microscopic levels.

Major challenges in multiscale sustainability assessment include: (i) how to identify interactions among indicators in different sustainability categories at different scales, (ii) whether there is a need and how to unify sustainability indicators at different scales, (iii) how to determine a minimal set of indicators at the different scales, and (iv) how to conduct an effective multiscale sustainability assessment. In this paper, we introduce a framework for analyzing systematically interactions among multiscale sustainability indicators, determining a minimal set of multiscale sustainability metrics, and conducting deep sustainability assessment by resorting sustainability engineering principles. The framework enables elimination of redundancy, while ensuring comprehensiveness of sustainability performance analysis. A case study on the multiscale sustainability assessment of nanopaint design and nanocoating manufacturing will be presented to demonstrate methodological attractiveness.