Understanding Uncertainty in Life Cycle Analysis
Research Group Activity
We put the environment at the heart of everything we do to help create a cleaner future and sustainable global economy. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach across the full technology supply chain, our focus is to develop sustainable materials and manufacturing processes to combat environmental damage. We have a strong track record in materials engineering, chemistry, economics, chemical engineering, sustainable materials and processes, polymer processing, life cycle assessments (LCA), environmental science and microbiology. You will benefit from our strong interdisciplinary links with other departments across the full technology supply chain, plus supporting skills such as assessing environmental footprints, supply chain management and economics.
Project Description
Life cycle assessments typically produce information about the environmental footprint of a product or process (Figure 1). This information is in the form of a value against a particular impact category, for example climate change. However, these numbers do not typically report any errors or confidence intervals which might apply to that specific data set.
This project will aim to use existing knowledge of LCA and methods for assessing the quality of data to create a methodology using available software to understand what the variations in a given data set might be. This will allow for the development of more scenario-based decision making, which is particularly useful in sustainability when trying to balance a number of competing factors.
[Image: ISO 14040:2006 Environmental management - Life cycle assessment]
Required Skills
The ability to use MATLAB, specifically to run simulations on data sets, would be desirable.
Apply for this Project
If you wish to apply for this project, fill in the form below including uploading your CV and personal statement, explaining why you want to do this particular internship project. Attachments must be in PDF format.
