Thomas P. Seager Golisano Institute for Sustainability Rochester Institute of Technology

1. Uncertainty in Life Cycle Assessment of Nanomaterials: Towards a Decision-driven Approach Thomas P. Seager Golisano Institute for Sustainability Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester NY

9. Smog Formation NOx Acidification CO Global Warming VOC Eutrophication CH4 Human Health Criteria Human Health NonCancer Human Health Cancer Ozone Depletion Ecotoxicity Impact Assessment: WeightingSmog Example Midpoint Impact Categories Inventory Characterization Normalization and Weighting Overall Environmental Score Adapted from Lippiatt (1999)

11. Purposes of LCA: • improvement assessment • comparative decision-making

15. MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM Figure 1: Criteria distributions for each alternative

16. Figure 2: Frequency graph for each alternative/rank

17. Most important impacts may be from upstream non-nano sources. Work backwards from a specific functional unit Quantity of nanomaterials to enter environment may be exceedingly small on a mass basis. (Don’t truncate!) Carefully characterize materials, including purity, aspect ratio & agglomeration. Appropriate equivalencies for characterization factors may not yet exist! Understand impact assessment to prioritize knowledge gaps.