A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Typical Foam Glass Production

Foam glass is a new insulation building materials and plays an important role in building energy efficiency for its many excellent performances, such as small thermal conductivity, low coefficient of thermal expansion and high mechanical strength. Generally, the manufacturing process of foam glass mainly can be classified into two typical processes, the waste glass recycling process and glass melting process. In this paper, the process-oriented life cycle assessment is used to quantitative analyze and evaluate the environmental load, such as energy consumption and pollutant emission of the two typical processes. The results show that the environmental load of the glass melting process takes place in two stages of the foaming and annealing, and the raw material extraction, while the waste glass recycling process mainly come from foaming and annealing. Regarding the energy consumption of foam glass, waste glass process is lower 22.4% than the glass melting process, while carbon emissions is lower 24.8%, and the comprehensive environmental impact is lower 40%. Therefore, the findings will guide and promote the new technology application for the energy saving and green technology applications in foam glass industry.