Research and test cases

The ProScale methodology and tool are under constant development, one of the ways this occurs is by research in various projects at IVL. Another very important opportunity for development is to learn from the test cases that are taking place in collaboration with the ProScale consortium partners.

Research

• ProScale – A life cycle oriented method to assess toxicological potentials of product systems, Guidance document, version 1.5 Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.
• ProScale Human toxicity assessment in LCA Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.
• Integration of ProScale toxicity potential assessment in LCA applied to Utility Poles, Extended Abstract and Poster Spotlight to SETAC 30th Annual Meeting, Dublin 4-7 May, 2020
• Global Human Toxicity Potential assessed with the ProScale method for use in Normalisation in LC Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.
• The application of a tiered life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to safe and sustainable chemistry in the development of smart solutions for water and air purification: The Mistra TerraClean case.

Test case

Deutsche Bauchemie - ProScale test cases for construction chemicals

In 2017-2018 test cases with ProScale were performed by Deutsche Bauchemie in order to compare ProScale scores with varying process conditions, such as different process categories (PROCs) for a manufacturing process, alteration of a chemical recipe, and difference in professional and industrial settings; which are all factors that the ProScale user can choose in the webtool. The study was used to experiment with conditions in chemical processes and settings in ProScale, which was important for educational purposes.

The results of the test cases were as expected, there could however be better explanations about what a ProScale value and its interpretation means, which is discussed continuously and a reason for the current development of more test cases. Cases with and without risk management measures (RMM) were compared and it was clear from the results that RMM has a large impact on minimizing the exposure, especially dermal exposure. ProScale scores for professional uses were shown to be significantly higher than the corresponding ProScale scores for industrial settings.

Overall, the methodology was shown to be easily applied without the need of a life cycle assessment expert, but pre-chain processes, service life and end of life are not very clear so far. Pre-chain processes for each of the relevant products were not included, as well as service life and end of life. The study is currently being extended to include the pre-chain products in order to increase the scope further.

If you are interested in learning more about the details in the case, please take a look at this presentation Pdf, 2 MB..