Explore the environmental impact of copper cables and aluminum cables from the perspective of full life cycle

The "copper-aluminum dispute" in the cable industry lasted for many years. Especially in the case of high copper prices and sharp drop in profit margin of cable manufacturers, "aluminum copper" or even "copper by aluminum" is particularly high . But there are different versions of whether "aluminum copper" works. Under the background of increasingly complex business environment and increasing environmental pressure, how much environmental impact during the entire life cycle of power cables has become a focus of attention of all parties?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a process of evaluating the environmental impact of a product, process, or activity throughout the life cycle of a product, from raw material collection to production, transport, sale, use, reuse, maintenance, and final disposal. It first identifies and quantifies the energy and material consumption and the release of the environment throughout the life-cycle phase, then assesses the environmental impact of those emissions and releases, and finally identifies and assesses the opportunities to reduce those effects. LCA different from other traditional evaluation methods have two salient features. First of all, it has the characteristics of a full-time, that is, the environmental impact or load caused by the system under study over the entire life cycle. Second, it has the combined character of taking into account not only the environmental impact of waste, but also the combined effect of the resource and energy consumption on the environment.

If you want to compare the environmental impact of copper and aluminum cable life cycle, we must first establish the basic conditions for the comparison, the same current carrying capacity, system boundaries, functional units, environmental impact type, evaluation tools and data collected from Production technology and scale of a considerable copper cable and aluminum cable manufacturer. Based on this consideration, the five stages of raw material acquisition, product manufacturing, product use, transportation and disposal are selected as the system boundaries of the two cables. According to the national standard GB 50217 Power Engineering Cable Design Code, YJHLV82-4 × 185 Polyethylene insulated PVC sheathed aluminum alloy chain with armored aluminum power cable) and YJV22 4 × 120 (XLPE insulated steel armored PVC sheathed copper cable) as a comparison of products. The functional unit is 1KM cable. The types of environmental impacts mainly include four major types of environmental impacts such as global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential and energy consumption. CML2001 and EI99 evaluation index system are respectively adopted.

Through the evaluation and analysis found: (1) the type of global warming environmental impact. Aluminum alloy cables emit more greenhouse gases than copper cables during the manufacturing and service phases and are lower than copper cables during the transport and regeneration phases. The raw material acquisition phase is close to that of copper cables, slightly lower than that of copper cables. (2) acidification of the environment. Aluminum alloy cables emit more emissions than copper cables during the manufacturing and service phases, slightly lower than copper cables during the raw material acquisition, transportation and regeneration phases. (3) eutrophication potential environmental impact. Aluminum alloy cables emit more emissions than copper cables during the manufacturing and service phases, slightly lower than copper cables during the raw material acquisition, transportation and regeneration phases. (4) Energy consumption Environmental impact. Aluminum cables consume more energy than copper cables during raw material acquisition, manufacture and use, and are slightly lower than copper during transport and regeneration. (5) The overall environmental impact. Copper is better than aluminum.

The main contribution of the environmental impact of power cable product life cycle comes from the use of cables, accounting for more than 98% of the environmental impact. The service life of the power cable products is 30 years and the power consumption is relatively huge. At the same time, Scenarios have a direct relationship, different usage scenarios and different useful life will greatly affect the calculation results. Second, from the product acquisition phase of raw materials, accounting for about 1%, the smallest contribution to the product transport stage, accounting for less than one ten thousandth.

From the above results, it can be seen that reducing power loss in transmission is the most important, effective and practical means to reduce the environmental impact of power cable life cycle. The power factor is an important technical and economic index of the power supply system. While the consuming equipment consumes the active power, it also needs a large amount of reactive power to be sent from the power source to the load. The power factor reflects that the electrical equipment consumes a certain amount of active power Reactive power required, the user power factor level, for the power system, for, full use of electrical equipment, have a significant impact. Appropriate increase power factor, not only can give full play to the hair, for the production of electricity equipment, reduce line losses, improve voltage quality, but also can improve the efficiency of user equipment. At the same time, reasonable configuration of conductor cross-section, additional circuit loops, installation of necessary reactive power compensation equipment and strengthening management measures can all reduce line losses to different extents, thereby reducing the environmental impact of power cables in the service phase. In this regard, copper cables are significantly better than aluminum cables. At the same time, there are still problems with the utilization of regenerated raw materials in the power cable industry. Different regenerative metal materials will have different environmental impacts due to the substitution of raw materials.

For power cable manufacturing enterprises, it is suggested that starting from the conductor itself and improving the production process, further improve the purity of the metal and the alloy process, increase the conductivity of the conductor, narrow the gap with the developed countries and reduce the reactive power consumption. At the same time, it can also reduce power cables and environmental impact as much as possible from the aspects of raw material selection, production energy consumption reduction, transportation distance reduction and product recycling.

Exhaust Fire Pump

1. Compact structure: The pump body and impeller are designed in one piece, which makes the pump more compact, occupies a small area and is easy to install and maintain.
2. Corrosion resistance: The pump body and impeller are made of high-strength cast iron with special treatment on the surface, which has excellent corrosion resistance.
3. High efficiency and energy saving: The impeller is made of high quality wear-resistant material, which has the feature of high efficiency and energy saving and can greatly reduce energy consumption.
4. Safe and reliable: There are multiple protection measures during the operation of the pump, such as overload protection, overheating protection, etc., which ensure the safe and reliable operation of the pump.
5. Wide application: cast iron pumps are suitable for various industrial fields, such as petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical, food, textile, etc., and can convey various liquid media.

Bin-Bridge General Machinery Co.,Ltd , https://www.castingpump.com