Life Cycle Assessment of a PCM-Filled Compact Storage Module for Building Applications

This study performs a Life Cycle Assessment on the production of a commercial PCM building application developed by RUBITHERM to quantify its environmental impacts and identify environmental hotspots across manufacturing, unlocking climate change mitigation potential. This research adds to the consideration of embodied energy demands and emissions when developing building efficiency solutions, especially for innovative material applications where knowledge is limited. The building application under examination is a compact storage module, consisting of an aluminium case filled with salt hydrate PCM, with a targeted performance of 94 Wh heat storage capacity. The LCA of the manufacturing stage resulted in a climate change impact of 5.81 kg CO2 eq. The research showed that the aluminium of the case to be filled in with PCM is the main contributor to almost all impact categories addressed, including climate change, while the sensitivity analysis revealed that the total climate change of the final product is highly dependent on the recycled aluminium content, which could be decreased by 46% by increasing the new scrap and post-consumer scrap aluminium streams. Finally, the study provides detailed Life Cycle Inventory data, based on real data shared by RUBITHERM, and methodology transparency to facilitate built-up research in the field.