Perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) are advancing to become the frontrunner candidates for the next generation of lighting and display technologies. However, despite rapid technical development, a thorough understanding of PeLEDs’ environmental and economic impacts—essential information for future commercialization—is currently lacking. Here we assess the environmental and economic performance of 18 representative PeLEDs, aiming to identify effective industrial techniques to develop sustainable PeLEDs from a life-cycle perspective. We find that, like mature organic LEDs, PeLEDs show excellent environmental performance. In addition, we demonstrate that lead is not a major source of toxicity from PeLEDs. We estimate that, to commercialize PeLEDs and improve their sustainability, their lifetime should reach the order of 10,000 hours to compensate for the relative environmental impacts. The techno-economic assessment indicates that the cost of future PeLEDs will probably be in the vicinity of US$100 m–2, comparable to that of commercial organic LED panels. Overall, this study shows the potential of PeLEDs as next-generation lighting technology from environmental, economic and technical perspectives, providing insights relevant to their future development.

About 60% of plastic packaging in Sweden ends up in mixed municipal solid waste (MSW), which is incinerated with energy recovery. This status quo presents a missed opportunity to meet ambitious recycling targets. This study aims to provide a detailed characterization of plastic packaging in mixed MSW to assess its potential for recycling and its significance in improving the overall recycling rate. A case study involving a Swedish city was conducted wherein a sample of 5500 kg of mixed MSW from 920 households was characterized. From the 31% recycling rate, improvement of up to 59% can be achieved by diverting this misplaced plastic packaging into the existing recycling system. An additional 9% increase remains challenging to achieve due to the occurrence of non-recyclable attributes like black and multilayer packaging. The highlighted key enabler is the combination of correct household waste separation behavior and the establishment of mechanical sorting facilities to recover plastic waste from mixed MSW. These recycling potentials and associated challenges are discussed in the context of Sweden's ongoing efforts across the plastic packaging value chain. Furthermore, the importance of extended waste characterization is emphasized as a tool for identifying recycling potentials and monitoring the effectiveness of measures in enhancing circularity and resource-efficiency. 

Background and Purpose: The emergence of new technologies is driving recent advancements in future-oriented LCA. However, apart from the intricacies of modeling the future, another critical consideration is the selection of technologies among others at the lab scale (i.e., which technologies are promising for scaling up?). This study aims to introduce a systematic technology selection and subsequent data inventory preceding a lab-scale LCA for screening purposes. The rapidly expanding field of perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) serves as a case, which lacks any known LCA study as of the writing of this abstract.

Methods: A series of workshops was conducted between researchers in sustainability assessment and material science at Linköping University. The objectives of these workshops were (i) to design a literature search and selection aimed at achieving comprehensive coverage of promising PeLED devices, and (ii) to collect material and energy input-output data, simulating similar laboratory synthesis conditions.

Results: Snowballing from Nature Portfolio journals published between 2018 and 2023, 18 PeLED devices were identified as promising based on four elicited selection criteria: external quantum efficiency, lifetime, brightness, and luminuous power efficiency (LPE). LPE required derivation as it is not directly reported in literature but is deemed important for LCA. LPE measures the amount of power used to generate light or the electricity consumption during the use phase.

Inventory of data from the literature demands completeness and comparability—aspects which are not detailed in typical lab-scale LCA. Completeness necessitates deriving the amount of materials from the given concentration of reagents and thickness of different layers of PeLED devices, and the energy consumption from the time of use of every machine. Comparability requires adjusting effective material use based on stoichiometric relations and resulting device active area, knowing that the reported material proportions are not optimized for material efficiency.

Conclusions: Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential for a systematic technology selection and subsequent data inventory. This contribution extends beyond the common narrow lab-scale LCAs assessing only one or a few new technologies, instead providing a comprehensive selection aimed at guiding further technological developments in consideration of promising technologies from broad technology pool.

Economic and environmental impact assessments are increasingly being adopted in the design and implementation of emerging systems. However, their emerging nature leads to several assessment challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the validity and usefulness of results in understanding their potential performance and supporting their development. There is the need to (i) account for spatial and temporal variability to allow a broader perspective at an early stage of development; (ii) handle uncertainties to systematically identify the critical factors and their interrelations that drive the results; (iii) integrate environmental and economic results to support sound decision-making based on two sustainability aspects. To address these assessment challenges, this study presents an alternative approach with the following corresponding features: (i) multiple scenario development to conduct an exploratory assessment of the systems under varying conditions and settings, (ii) global sensitivity analysis to identify the main critical factors and their interrelations, and (iii) trade-off and eco-efficiency analysis to integrate the economic and environmental results. The integrated approach is applied to a case study on plasma gasification for solid waste management. The results of the study highlight how the approach allows the identification of the dynamic relations between project settings and surrounding conditions. For example, the choice of gasifying agent largely depends on the background energy system, which dictates the impacts of the process energy requirement and the savings from the substituted energy of the syngas output. Based on these findings, the usefulness and validity of the proposed integrated approach are discussed in terms of how the key assessment challenges are addressed and how it can provide guidance for the development of emerging systems.

The single-use function of plastic packaging generates a continuously increasing input to the waste management system leading to sustainability challenges. In response, several management strategies along the plastic value chain are proposed including improvements on product design, source-separation, mechanical and optical sorting, and further downstream material recycling. However, in some countries like Sweden, these strategies are often implemented in isolation without considering their combination effects on the performance of the entire plastic value chain. Moreover, the corresponding assessments of these strategies are often limited to material efficiency (i.e., recycling rate) thus overlooking the potential trade-offs with environmental performance. Hence, this study aims to assess the combination effects of different management strategies for plastic packaging in Sweden in terms of both material and environmental dimensions. Over 700 scenarios involving different combinations of management strategies were modeled and assessed through life cycle assessment. The results show that upstream strategies such us polymer restriction especially for food packaging (i.e., limiting to polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene) lead to higher recycling rates and better environmental performance. In contrast, further downstream material recycling strategies show more apparent trade-offs, especially between recycling rates and environmental impacts related to toxicity. Recommendations for the combinations of management strategies for plastic packaging, which can increase recycling rates and reduce environmental impacts, are presented and discussed. 

Landfill mining refers to the re-circulation of resources from the previously deposited wastes. It is an alternative approach for managing landfills that integrates resource recovery with site remediation. Several resources that can be recovered in landfills include scrap metals for recycling, combustibles for energy recovery, and inert materials for construction applications. In addition, land can be recovered for alternative uses, or landfill void space can be liberated for the deposition of future wastes. At present, landfill mining is still an emerging concept with few project implementations. Consequently, the assessments of its economic and climate implications are case study-specific, limiting the understanding of its potential in a wider geographical scope.  

This thesis aims to assess the economic performance and climate impact of landfill mining in Europe towards the development of sound strategies for implementation. Different project setups are assessed in relation to varying factors at the site level such as waste composition and landfill settings, and at the system level such as policy and market conditions and background material and energy. In doing so, a factor-based method is developed and applied to generate multiple scenarios (531, 441 scenarios per project setup) and determine the underlying important factors and their interrelations that drive the results. Such understanding is used to develop and discuss strategies for improvement by addressing relevant questions for specific stakeholders, including project investors (i.e., which landfill sites to prioritize?), landfill mining practitioners (i.e., how to set up such projects?), and policymakers (i.e., which policy instruments can effectively support such projects?).  

Results show that landfill mining is preferable in terms of climate than economy. In general, about 50% of the scenarios are climate beneficial, while only about 20% of the scenarios are profitable. Possible economic and climate improvements are shown by employing internal thermal treatment of combustibles and extending fines residue utilization as construction aggregates. However, these require overarching conditions such that the choice of project setup must be in line with the selection of landfills for mining. Preferable site and system-level conditions are identified in general but it is also discussed that the plausibility of finding such conditions may be difficult at present. This steers the development of more tailored strategies on what can be done now by the landfill practitioners in terms of setting up projects under current policy and market conditions in specific regions, or what can be done by the policymakers in terms of implementing various policy instruments that can drive such changes at the system level. In this regard, the future of landfill mining research can be guided towards addressing key challenges and potential solutions for improvement elicited through a generic and learning-oriented assessment. Furthermore, this thesis highlights the role of assessment as a tool for learning and guiding the development of emerging concepts such as landfill mining.  

Landfill mining är en strategi som kombinerar sanering och resursutvinning av avfallsdeponier. Detta för att minimera de negativa miljö- och hälsoeffekter som dessa platser orsakar och samtidigt återvinna de värdefulla material och energiresurser som tidigare deponerats. Sådana projekt kan även genomföras för att frigöra mark för mer hållbara användningsområden eller för att skapa nytt utrymme för att deponera framtida avfallsflöden. Även om tidigare forskning har visat att landfill mining kan utgöra en viktig råmaterial- och miljöstrategi saknas fortfarande kunskap och erfarenhet om hur sådana projekt kan genomföras på ett lönsamt och miljömässigt motiverat sätt.  

Den här avhandlingens mål är att analysera den ekonomiska prestandan och miljöpåverkan av landfill mining i ett europeiskt perspektiv och hur utfallet av sådana projekt i sin tur beror på olika plats-, projekt- och systemvillkor. Baserat på dessa studier utvecklas sedan strategier för implementering genom att tillämpa kunskapen om hur valet av deponi och projektupplägg påverkar prestandan av sådana projekt under olika policy- och marknadsvillkor.  

Forskningen innefattar tillämpning av en miljösystemanalytisk metod som utvecklats speciellt för att analysera vilka plats-, projekt- och systemvillkor som tillsammans avgör den ekonomiska och miljömässiga prestandan av landfill mining i olika situationer och sammanhang. För att besvara målet med avhandlingen har ett stort antal scenarier analyserats, vilka täcker in den variation som kan förväntas vad gäller olika plats-, projekt- och systemvillkor för landfill mining i Europa.

Resultaten visar på en övergripande nivå att landfill mining presterar bättre med avseende på miljöprestanda än lönsamhet. Ca 50% av de analyserade scenarierna genererar klimatvinster medan endast 20% är fördelaktiga ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv. Det finns emellertid en stor potential att förbättra både den ekonomiska och miljömässiga prestandan genom att mer noggrant välja och koordinera valet av deponi och projektupplägg. En central slutsats från dessa analyser är att de omkringliggande, och till stor del regionalt betingade, systemvillkoren har en stor inverkan på utfallet av sådana projekt. I många fall inverkar dessa rådande policy och marknadsvillkor och bakgrundsystem för material och energiproduktion också negativt på den miljömässiga och ekonomiska prestandan. För att skapa bättre förutsättningar för landfill mining är det därför ofta nödvändigt att förändra och anpassa dessa systemvillkor. I avhandlingen analyseras potentialen av flera potentiella styrmedel för att stimulera och förbättra de ekonomiska villkoren för projekt som genererar tydliga klimatvinster. Sammantaget visar denna avhandling på hur miljösystemanalys av nya koncept som landfill mining kan användas som ett lärandeverktyg för att vägleda fortsatt kunskaps- och teknikutveckling inom området och ta fram strategier för implementering.

Landfill mining (LFM) is an alternative strategy to manage landfills that integrates remediation with secondary resource recovery. At present, LFM remains as an emerging concept with a few pilot-scale project implementations, which presents challenges when assessing its economic performance. These challenges include large knowledge deficits about the individual processes along the LFM process chain, lack of know-how in terms of project implementation and economic drivers, and limited applicability of results to specific case studies. Based on how these challenges were addressed, this thesis aims to analyze the usefulness and validity of different economic assessments of LFM towards the provision of better support for decision-making and in-depth learning for the development of cost-efficient projects. Different studies were analyzed including the previous studies through a systematic literature review and the factor-based method that is developed in this thesis. Four categories of economic assessment approaches were derived in terms of the study object that is about either an individual LFM project (case-study specific) or multiple LFM projects in a region (generic); and in terms of the extent of analysis that is about either the identification of the net economic potential (decision-oriented) or extended towards an in-depth learning of what builds up such result (learning-oriented). Across the different approaches, most of the previous studies have questionable usefulness and validity. The unaddressed parametric uncertainties exclude the influence of using inherently uncertain input data due to large knowledge deficits. While the narrowly accounted scenario uncertainties limits the fact that LFM can be done in various ways and settings in terms of site selection, project set-up and regulatory and market conditions. In essence, these uncertainties propagate from case-study specific to generic study object. From decision-oriented to learning-oriented studies, the identification of what builds up the result are unsystematically determined that raises issues on their subsequent recommendations for improvement based on superficially derived economic drivers. The factor-based method, with exploratory scenario development and global sensitivity analysis, is presented as an approach to performing generic and learning-oriented studies. As for general recommendations, applied research is needed to aid large knowledge deficits, methodological rigor is needed to account for uncertainties and systematically identify economic drivers, and learningoriented assessment is needed to facilitate future development of LFM. This thesis highlights the important role of economic assessments, which is not only limited for the assessment of economic potential but also for learning and guiding the development of emerging concepts such as LFM.

As landfill mining (LFM) gains public attention, systematic assessment of its economic potential is deemed necessary. The aim of this review is to critically analyze the usefulness and validity of previous economic assessments of LFM. Following the life cycle costing (LCC) framework, (i) the employed methods based on goal and scope, technical parameters and data inventory, and modelling choices were contrasted with respect to (ii) the synthesized main findings based on net profitability and economic performance drivers. Results showed that the selected studies (n=15) are mostly case study-specific and concluded that LFM has a weak economic potential, hinting at the importance of favorable market and regulation settings. However, several method issues are apparent as costs and revenues are accounted at different levels of aggregation, scope and scale-from process to sub-process level, from private to societal economics, and from laboratory to pilot-scale, respectively. Moreover, despite the inherent large uncertainties, more than half of the studies did not perform any uncertainty or sensitivity analyses posing validity issues. Consequently, this also limits the usefulness of results as individual case studies and as a collective, towards a generic understanding of LFM economics. Irrespective of case study-specific or generic aims, this review recommends that future assessments should be learning-oriented. That is, uncovering granular information about what builds up the net profitability of LFM, to be able to systematically determine promising paths for the development of cost-efficient projects.