Browsing by Author "Radwan, Mostafa"

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Environmental Impact Assessment Tool for Electronics
(2024-08-19) Zhabura, Yana
Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Evaluating the environmental impacts of electronic products is important due to the sector’s significance to modern society and its high environmental impacts. General environmental impact assessment software is used for electronics despite the specific challenges faced by the industry, such as complex globalized supply chains, fast-moving technology and low data availability. The goal of this master's thesis is to develop a software tool designed specifically for evaluating the environmental impacts of electronic products. The tool aims to simplify the assessment process and address the data constraints. An environmental impact assessment tool was developed using the Python programming language based on the tiered hybrid method. In the tiered hybrid method, process-based and Economic Input-Output (EIO) data are combined based on component prices to assess the environmental impacts of a product. In the EIO method, already established economic data is extended with environmental data, and the process-based method focuses on the impact of each material and process separately. Exiobase database and scientific literature were used as data sources. The current version of the tool is suitable for evaluating the impact of the manufacturing phase. The hybrid method is utilized to calculate the global warming potential, other impact categories are evaluated using the EIO method. The tool was tested by evaluating the global warming potential of a smartphone manufacturing and comparing it to the value published in the manufacturer’s environmental impact report. The impact estimated using the tool is 75.3 kg CO2eq compared to 70.5 kg CO2eq presented by the manufacturer. Hybrid calculation results depend heavily on financial data, so it is important to correctly calculate the inflation-adjusted basic price of the product. The tool could be further developed by integrating other process-based data, evaluating other life cycle phases and improving the quality of EIO data.
Life Cycle Assessment of Power Semiconductor Module Manufacturing
(2023-08-21) Radwan, Mostafa
Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Power modules with Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) are utilized in a wide range of applications. While power semiconductor components are used to control power and enhance energy efficiency, producing such devices requires resource-demanding and energy-intensive steps, in addition to using hazardous chemicals. The need to consider sustainability as a primary aspect of the device’s life cycle has become inevitable. In this thesis, the latest IGBT and Free-Wheeling Diode (FWD) design and production trends have been studied to construct a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model for mimicking a commercial silicon IGBT power module manufacturing phase. Recent power semiconductor developments are assessed from a sustainability aspect and the model is designed to show the most dominant environmental impacts in the device’s production phase. Moreover, the literature provides background on related LCA studies in the field of electronics with a closer look at power devices. A cradle-to-gate model was built using LCA for experts (GaBi) software after a teardown process of the module. The construction of the model is shown in detail. The environmental impacts were obtained, and two categories were chosen to be quantitatively assessed; it was found that semiconductor front-end production dominates both Global Warming Potential (GWP) and ecotoxicity categories, followed by baseplate and nickel pro-duction. Furthermore, it was found that transparent presentation of the methodology for conducting the inventory and calculating the environ-mental impacts are mandatory steps.