Air acidification

Type of indicator

Quantitative

Relative dimension and aggregated criteria

Environmental sustainability: Environmental quality: Air quality

Description

This indicator measures the potential impact of acidifying pollutants through the LCA method. Acidifying pollutants have a wide variety of impacts on soil, groundwater, surface water, biological organisms, ecosystem, and materials. The major acidifying pollutants considered are sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen (mono/di) oxide (NO_x), and ammonia (NH₃). Please refer to Guinée et al. (2002) for the detailed method.

Indicator calculation

∑ 𝑒_𝑖 ∗ 𝐶𝐹_𝑖/ FPCM

Where:

e_i = emission of substance i

CF_i = associated characterization factor i

𝐹𝑃𝐶𝑀 = Total FPCM produced in kg

Unit

kg SO2 equivalent per kg FPCM

Indicator interpretation

Higher values indicate larger negative impacts on the environment.

Scale definition

Scale definition:

Reference values		Scales	Dexi interpretation		References
0.0075 kg SO2-/kg		< 0.009	Very low	+	(Basset-Mens 2009)	et	al.,
0.0180 kg SO2-/kg conventional	in	[0.009; 0.01]	Low		(Cederberg Mattsson, 2000)		and
0.016 kg SO2-/kg	in	[0.01; 0.015]	Medium		(Cederberg Mattsson, 2000)		and

0.0095 kg SO2-/kg	[0.015; 0.02]	High		(Thomassen et al., 2008b)
0.011 kg SO2-/kg	> 0.02	Very high		(Thomassen et al., 2008b)

Emission calculation : (Koch and Salou, 2016)