Financed by EU
Fuel Cell System Development in FluMaBack:
End of Life Assessment Legislation. The European Commission aims to create a new economic model related with products, named “Circular economy” [11]. Formally called “Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe”. The end-of-life of a product is an important step, the last one which can become the first of a new product. The environmental impact of a product does no stop at the end of utilization phase, but in some cases, it is considered that even has more effect on environment that in the life time. On the basis of LCA study, legislation and guidelines EOLA (end of life assessment) was done for FluMaBack UPS unit. Procedure. First step was identification of materials regarding masses and types. Three stage hazardous scale was set up to identify all hazardous materials and their presence in the components. At the end possible end of life scenario was defined for 3 kW UPS system. Materials and components. Almost 70 % in the system is steel than can be easily reused and/or recycled, 11 % is tinlead alloy that is present in the battery and for which good establish recycling paths are established. From the results we can conclude that electronic equipment, platinum and surfuric acid are the most critical materials in the system. Components 7th EAP guiding EU environment policy: “The Union has set itself the objective of becoming a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy by 2020 with a set of policies and actions aimed at making it a low carbon and resource efficient economy”
Figure 2: The shares of materials used in 358 kg UPS system
Classification of BoP components / parts /processes regarding materials and hazardous level
are quantified in three stage hazardous scale. Since the mass of platinum in FC stack is small, FC it is not classified as very hazardous, but battery and assembly process (due masses and many electronics parts) is very hazardous. Reverse Logistics. The major reverse logistic functional phases include Collection, Separation, Disassembly,
Compaction and Outbound Logistics. Electro Power systems (EPS) as system integrator EPS has an extremely lean reverse logistics process. It only involves four actors: customer, retailer (usually EPS itself), EPS customer service and local contractor. At End-of-life the disposal options are reuse, recycling
Reverse logistics in FluMaBack project
End of life options
and remanufacturing. There are two more options waste-to-energy and landfilling, which are the most undesirable options. The final destination of materials must be determined to maximize, in a broad sense, the performance that can be obtained, or to minimize the social and environmental impact generated.
Collaborative Project: Fluid Management component improvement for Back up fuel cell systems Proposal Number: 301782 Application Area: SP1-JTI-FCH.3: Stationary Power Generation & CHP Topic: SP1-JTI-FCH.2011.3.3: Component improvement for stationary power applications
Coordinator: Electro power systems, Ilaria Rosso Via Livorno 60, 10144 Torino - Italy Tel.: +39 011 2258211 Web: www.flumaback.eu