LCA in decision-making processes

AbstractSynthetic sulfuric acid is used in a wide range of applications in fine chemical industry. Despite an already performed optimization of input amounts, used sulfuric acid is still a quantitatively important waste by-product. As a result, different utilization technologies for used sulfuric acid exist:1.production of gypsum2.thermal reductive cracking3.thermal cracking and oxidation This makes an LCA study of this waste by-product quite interesting.In this paper:• the starting point for a comparative LCA of the above mentioned utilization technologies at a concrete situation is explained, in a work of Ciba-Geigy Corp.• a short summary of the comparative LCA is presented• lessons learned from performing the LCA and using it in a decision process are described.