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Purpose National LCA networks have been supporting the mainstreaming of LCA practice in around a hundred countries. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the factors which contribute to the continuity and relevance of LCA networks as LCA practice becomes more mainstream. This paper addresses the following research questions: what factors enabled the establishment of LCA networks and how is their relevance maintained? How do LCA networks maintain operational continuity? In-depth interviews with national LCA networks were conducted and thematically analyzed. The results analyze the factors contributing to the establishment of LCA networks, as well as offering a unique insight into the factors affecting their relevance over time and contributing to maintaining their operational continuity. While previously LCA networks focused mainly on raising awareness of life cycle approaches, now, they are moving towards providing a coordinated influence on policies and stakeholders. LCA is no longer only an academic method; it has become mainstreamed in business sectors. By offering diverse activities and networking possibilities, LCA networks remain attractive for their members who are willing to pay a membership fee, which secures their long-term viability. The driving force for starting LCA networks was individual experts with an interest in the topic. The formal establishment of the networks allowed greater budgetary resources and, thus, the ability to carry out a broader set of activities that are relevant for different groups of stakeholders. The role of LCA networks both as a learning platform as well as an influential interface between different organizations makes them relevant over time.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a substantial role in the economy and job creation, but they are a remarkable source of environmental impacts. SMEs often lack skills and resources to...

Further to Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, the share of biofuels in transport should rise to a minimum of 10% in Member States by 2020. In Finland, the goal is set at 20%, and it is estimated that this can be produced entirely in domestic factories, as long as the projects already underway will be successful and additional industrial-scale biofuel plants would be built. The paper reviews the state of projects underway in Finland, and outlines current research activity in promoting waste and by-product — based biofuels.

The performance of three commercial poly(dimethylsiloxane) based membranes (Pervatech, Pervap 4060 and PolyAn) was studied in pervaporation of removal of acetone, butanol and ethanol from binary aqueous mixtures at 25 °C. Physicochemical properties of solvents and PDMS were applied to describe affinities and interactions between transported mixture components and membrane. It was shown that high vapour pressure of acetone causes the most pronounced transport of this component through all investigated membranes. In terms of apparent properties, all membranes show high separation towards organic component of the binary mixture. Separation factors ( β i / w ) determined for aqueous mixture containing 0.01 mol fraction of acetone are equal to 30, 62 and 39 for Pervatech, Pervap 4060 and PolyAn, respectively. Comparing these values to β BuOH / w values of water–butanol mixture (9, 31, 9 for Pervatech, Pervap 4060 and PolyAn, respectively), it seems that acetone is the most preferentially transported compound. In contrast, the intrinsic membrane properties discussed in terms of permeances and selectivities reveal that investigated membranes are selective towards butanol (intrinsic membrane selectivity α BuOH / w is equal to 3.6, 11.6 and 3.4 for Pervatech, Pervap 4060 and PolyAn, respectively). However, these membranes are nonselective or water selective ( α i / w ≤1) in contact with water–acetone and water–ethanol mixtures.

Reduction of production costs is an essential part in the development of more economic and competitive production processes. Membrane techniques have a great potential to decrease the separation costs in the biofuel production. In this research, the feasibility of pervaporative dehydration of bioethanol to be processed for vehicle fuel usage was studied. The focus was on the feed prefiltration, energy integration and permeation behaviour, which are important factors for membrane stability and product quality. In addition, they have a major impact on the energy efficiency of the ethanol dewatering. Experiments were done by using activated carbon filtration equipment and pervaporation unit equipped with hydrophilic crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membranes. Results indicate that active carbon filtration can provide an efficient and up-scalable pretreatment method for the pervaporation feed. Further, the tested pervaporation membranes provided adequate selectivity, not only for the retentate (ethanol), but also for the permeate (water). Low ethanol concentration in the permeate favors intense integration of energy flows and energy savings.

Butanol has potential to become an important renewable transportation fuel and feedstock chemical in the future. However, low yield and high separation costs are the main obstacles in feasible industrial scale biobutanol production by the acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation process. Both problems can be overcome by using pervaporation as the product removal technique. The performance of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane with a support layer of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was studied for the removal of acetone, butanol and ethanol from dilute aqueous model solutions. The effect of feed composition on permeation fluxes, permeances, separation factors and pervaporation separation indices was investigated by using binary aqueous solutions of acetone, butanol and ethanol followed by experiments with different aqueous ternary mixtures and quaternary ABE–water mixture. At feed temperature of 42 °C, partial fluxes and permeate concentrations were found to be in the order of acetone≈butanol>ethanol, while the permeance order was butanol>ethanol≈acetone. Separation factors were in the range of 21–26, 22–29 and 5–7 for acetone, butanol and ethanol, respectively. Results indicate that the tested membrane has potential to be used in the ABE fermentation process.

There is a demand for the increased production and usage of biofuels from both environmental and a political point of view. Biobutanol has great potential to become a novel replacement fuel for gasoline and diesel or an additive compound of these fuels in the future. This chapter reveals the superior fuel properties of butanol over ethanol, including better energy content, usability, safety, and easier distribution of the fuel. Traditional biochemical (acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation) and chemical production processes of butanol are reviewed. In addition, the novel production routes of biobutanol are highlighted. Challenges in the implementation of feasible biochemical production processes of butanol in industrial scale include cost of raw materials, low product yield from fermentation, and expensive processing techniques. Process development techniques and different methods in order to increase the yield of fermentative butanol production by means of for instance new processing technologies and metabolic engineering are discussed.