Life Cycle Assessment of Tungsten Production in China

Abstract:

Tungsten is an important strategic metal, widely used in cemented carbide manufacturing, steel industry, and other economic fields. The amount of tungsten resource consumed in China each year accounts for more than 80% of the world’s annual total consumption. The purpose of this study is to quantify the environmental impact of tungsten production in China through the method of LCA. The result shows that, regarding the contributions of impact categories, the normalized value of HTP is the largest one among various impact categories, which accounts for 35.39% of the total environmental impact, followed by AP, PMFP, GWP, MDP, FDP, and POFP, respectively. The results also show that, regarding the contributions of production processes, smelting process is the largest contributor to the environmental burden of tungsten production due to the crystallization and calcination reduction occurred in the smelting process consumes a large amount of electricity, followed by mining, beneficiation, and transportation, respectively. The major academic contribution of this paper to the existing literatures is that we employed process-based analysis method, which could improve the accuracy of the study and provide practical advices for tungsten enterprises to reduce the environmental impact.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 944)
• Pages: 1137-1143
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.944.1137
• Online since: January 2019
• Authors: Ke Wei Lu, Xian Zheng Gong*, Bo Xue Sun, Qing Ding
• Keywords: Environmental Impact, Life Cycle Assessment, Tungsten

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