Abstract
This Doctorate study has been split into two distinct phases with two separate sponsoring companies. The first 27 months were spent with British Nuclear Fuels plc developing a End-of-Pipe technology for abatement of NOx emissions. The second phase of the Doctorate was concerned with developing Life Cycle Assessment as a means of predicting Environmental Burdens for End-of-Pipe technologies. The common theme linking the two projects is the comparison of End-of-Pipe, Clean-up technologies with Clean Technologies in the chemical processing industry. The research has been able to show that adsorption onto zeolite is suitable technology for removal of NOx and that compared to most other NOx abatement technologies offers a very low Environmental Burden. Only peroxide scrubbing has the potential of a lower Environmental Burden. Both technologies exhibit negative Environmental Burdens; i.e. by reusing the NOx they eliminate Environmental Burdens elsewhere in the life cycle. Such predictions have been possible through application of Life Cycle principles to the technology comparisons. Whilst the second phase of the research does develop definitive answers for the specific examples considered, the main aim of the work is to show how Life Cycle principles can be applied to End-of-Pipe technologies such that accurate comparisons between the Environmental Impacts of each technology can be made. The work shows how current BPEO thinking could be replaced by a Life Cycle based approach to ensure that pollution abatement projects actually do minimise Environmental Burden as a whole rather than shifting the Burden from one part of the life cycle to another.