Seminar 1

Question 1

Which are the two major system boundaries in an MFA?

Answer 1

Antroposphere and Biosphere

also other boundaries of course

Question 2

Which are the differences between SFA and MFA?

Answer 2

MFA

• Material (economic value)
• Large bulk mass flows
• How much are stocked in houshold, how much waste, recycled, reused

SFA

• Substances are mostly not given a value
• Environmental damage due to a certain substance

Are usually done for different applications

Question 3

Describe three different areas of application of MFA.

Answer 3

SFA - for risk assesment in chemical industry

MFA - resource management, and chemical industry, waste management, production etc

Question 4

How can the results from an SFA like the one of mercury flows in Europe (see the MFA lecture slide
no. 20) be used? Could this for instance be connected to a risk assessment?

Answer 4

Where does it go? Soil, taken up by crops? How does it reach humans?

Question 5

Imagine an LCA of a certain product, for instance a coffee machine. This LCA can be used for
different purposes like product development. Which other possible applications can be found for
this LCA?

Answer 5

(Besides product development)
Raw material
Manufactured
Energy

Question 6

What is the main difference between MFA and LCA?

Answer 6

MFA can be used for inventory, to gather data, witch can be used by itself or for LCA. LCA is considering the environmetal impact.