Growing demand for preservation of environment,conservation of resources and development of a sustainable society is driving manufacturers to make "greener" products and use "greener" processes.Foundry is considered one of the most environment polluting industries all over the world.The work presented in this paper compares environmental impacts of sand moulding process for four different binder systems,namely phenolic urethane no-bake,phenolic ester no-bake,phenolic formaldehyde and furan no-bake using a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment(LCA)approach.The comparison is made using various impact categories,such as global warming,acidification,ecological toxicity,eutrophication,human toxicity and photochemical smog by ISO-FRED-14040 LCA method.Results of the study show that the phenolic urethane is most and the furan no bake binder is least harmful to environment and human health in most of the categories.Emissions from the phenolic ester no-bake binder system are most dangerous for human health.This study also revealed that the raw material acquisition phase consumes major portion of life cycle energy for mould making process.
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