Life cycle carbon emission assessments and comparisons of cast iron and resin mineral composite machine tool bed in China

Machine tool is the core of manufacturing, and one of its indispensable parts is the machine tool bed, which is mainly composed of cast iron and exhibits high material consumption. Owing to the high carbon emissions of steel industries and the limitation of steel reserves, resin mineral composite machine tool beds have been developed. But the carbon emissions of the resin mineral composite machine tool bed are not assessed. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to investigate the carbon emissions across the life cycle phases of cast iron machine tool bed and resin mineral composite machine tool bed. The uses of cast iron and resin mineral composite for machine tool bed were compared. LCA was employed to establish a carbon emission assessment model for the raw material acquisition phase, manufacturing phase, recycling phase, and disposal phase. Carbon emission assessments were conducted based on reliable survey data. The cast iron machine tool bed has a total carbon emission of 5673.60 kgCO2eq, and the resin mineral composite bed has a total carbon emission of 1259.37 kgCO2eq. Compared with the cast iron machine tool bed, the resin mineral composite machine tool bed reduces carbon emissions by 77.80%. It was found that the carbon emission of the cast iron machine tool bed was greater than that of the resin mineral composite tool bed. It lays a foundation for the research on the potentiality of the resin mineral composite machine tool bed to replace the cast iron machine tool bed form the point of environmental aspects.