Prospective Dynamic and Probabilistic Material Flow Analysis of Graphene-Based Materials in Europe from 2004 to 2030

As industrial demand for graphene-based materials (GBMs)
grows,
more attention falls on potential environmental risks. The present
article describes a first assessment of the environmental releases
of GBMs using dynamic probabilistic material flow analysis. The model
considered all current or expected uses of GBMs from 2004 to 2030,
during which time there have already been significant changes in how
the graphene mass produced is distributed to different product categories.
Although the volume of GBM production is expected to grow exponentially
in the coming years, outflow from the consumption of products containing
GBMs shows only a slightly positive trend due to their long lifetimes
and the large in-use stock of some applications (e.g., GBM composites
used in wind turbine blades). From consumption and end-of-life phase
GBM mass flows in 2030, estimates suggest that more than 50% will
be incinerated and oxidized in waste plants, 16% will be landfilled,
12% will be exported out of Europe, and 1.4% of the annual production
will flow to the environment. Predicted release concentrations for
2030 are 1.4 ng/L in surface water and 20 μg/kg in sludge-treated
soil. This study’s results could be used for prospective environmental
risk assessments and as input for environmental fate models.

随着工业对石墨烯基材料（GBM）需求的不断增长，对潜在的环境风险的关注度亦日益提升。本文首次对GBM的环境排放进行了评估，采用了动态概率性物质流动分析方法。模型综合考虑了从2004年至2030年间GBM的所有当前或预期用途，在此期间，大规模生产的石墨烯在不同产品类别中的分配方式已发生了显著变化。尽管预计未来几年GBM的生产量将呈指数增长，但含GBM产品的消费量流出仅显示出轻微的正向趋势，这主要归因于其较长的使用寿命以及某些应用（例如，用于风力涡轮机叶片的GBM复合材料）中大量在用库存。从2030年的消费和报废阶段的GBM物质流动来看，估计超过50%将被焚烧并在废物处理厂氧化，16%将被填埋，12%将被出口至欧洲，而年度生产量的1.4%将流入环境。预计2030年的排放浓度分别为地表水中的1.4 ng/L和污泥处理土壤中的20 μg/kg。本研究的结果可用于预期的环境风险评估，并作为环境归宿模型的输入。