The environmental sustainability of titanium powders production mainly depends by atomization that is the most diffused technology in this field, ensuring the environmental advantages of high mass flow rate, energetical efficiency and reduced waste which have greatly encouraged its diffusion on an industrial scale. However, few quantitative assessment studies have been proposed on atomization sustainability and none of them consider the many technological evolutions of atomization that the industries are working on. This study proposes a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA), of the ex-ante type, of future new Electrode Induction Gas Atomization (EIGA) and Plasma Rotating Electrode Process (PREP) that will produce Ti6Al4V powders in 2035. This time point, referring to a medium-term view is considered to ensure the relevance and the reliability of technology forecasts based on quantitative estimates. Both the systems have been modelled through data retrieved from patents to assess their future impacts. The prospective LCA shows that in the future EIGA the average impact, in each indicator, will be 50% lower for electrical consumption and 98% lower for argon consumption compared to future PREP. The future EIGA and future PREP are more sustainable than the mature EIGA (of the crucible and crucible-free type) and mature PREP (of the traditional and supreme-speed plasma type) currently on the market. The average impact reductions, respectively passing from future to mature EIGA and PREP, are 65% and 23% for electricity consumption and 11% and 28% for argon consumption. The variabilities in technological solutions, scalability and future scenarios about electricity and argon production scale all the impacts without reverse the ranking. At a structural level, the most sustainable solutions are the optimization of the geometries of the titanium bar in the future EIGA and the optimization of the disposition of the plasma gun in the future PREP. This study shows which technological advancement increase the sustainability of EIGA and PREP atomization process in the future and to what extent in the two cases.

中文翻译：

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钛粉雾化的前瞻性生命周期评估


钛粉生产的环境可持续性主要取决于雾化技术，雾化技术是该领域最普及的技术，确保了高质量流量、能源效率和减少废物的环境优势，这极大地促进了其在工业规模上的普及。然而，关于雾化可持续性的定量评估研究很少，而且没有一个研究考虑到行业正在研究的雾化技术的许多演变。本研究提出了对未来新型电极感应气体雾化 (EIGA) 和等离子体旋转电极工艺 (PREP) 进行事前类型的前瞻性生命周期评估 (LCA)，这些技术将在 2035 年生产 Ti6Al4V 粉末。这个时间点，参考中期观点被认为是为了确保基于定量估计的技术预测的相关性和可靠性。这两个系统都通过从专利中检索的数据进行建模，以评估其未来的影响。前瞻性 LCA 显示，与未来 PREP 相比，未来 EIGA 各指标的平均影响将是电力消耗降低 50%，氩气消耗降低 98%。未来的EIGA和未来的PREP比目前市场上成熟的EIGA（坩埚型和无坩埚型）和成熟的PREP（传统型和极速等离子体型）更具可持续性。从未来到成熟的 EIGA 和 PREP，电力消耗的平均影响减少分别为 65% 和 23%，氩气消耗的平均影响减少 11% 和 28%。电力和氩气生产的技术解决方案、可扩展性和未来情景的变化会影响所有影响，但不会颠倒排名。 在结构层面，最可持续的解决方案是未来EIGA中钛棒几何形状的优化以及未来PREP中等离子枪配置的优化。本研究表明哪些技术进步可以提高未来 EIGA 和 PREP 雾化过程的可持续性，以及在两种情况下达到何种程度。