(656c) Life-Cycle-Based Sustainability Assessment and Decision Making for Nanocoating Material Development

The remarkable development on nanocoating materials brings a wide range of potential applications in the automotive, aerospace, and pharmaceutical industries.  Despite the obvious technical benefits of nanocoating such as anti-scratch and corrosion prevention, the unintended health and environmental risks as well as the economic and social benefit associated with the use of nanoproducts are not yet fully understood.  The proactive and deep understanding of nanocoating materials requires a comprehensive assessment over each stage of its life cycle in order to develop nanocoating systems with improved product performance and reduced impact on environment and society.  It becomes urgent to develop systems approaches for comprehensive evaluation of performance of nanocoating products and assurance of sustainability performance over their life cycle.

The life cycle of nanocoating materials consists of the stages ranging from (nano)material selection and processing, through nanopaint/nanocoating manufacturing, to product use and disposal.  In this work, a model-based sustainability assessment and decision-making methodology is introduced.  It can be used to assess the economic, environmental, and social aspects in every life cycle stage.  In addition, the optimal sustainability improvement strategy can be derived at individual stages as well as lifespan.  To perform a comprehensive assessment, different sets of sustainability metrics have been identified for use in different life cycle stages.  These metrics are analyzed to ensure the consistency of the assessment.  The methodology has been used to study the sustainability performance of nanopaint and its application to automotive coatings.  A comprehensive case study will highlight critical issues concerning the material’s development and nanoparticles emission to the environment and health impact, economic incentive and social satisfaction.