The Influence of Agricultural Data Uncertainty in the Life Cycle Assessment of Biodegradable Hydraulic Lubricants

From a Life Cycle Assessment study of hydraulic lubricants from vegetable and mineral oil, ithas been found that the agricultural step in the biodegradable hydraulic lubricant production has the mainenvironmental impact. The aim of this study is to develop an uncertainty analysis of agricultural data usedin the biodegradable hydraulic lubricant inventory from this LCA to determine the influence of datauncertainty in the environmental LCA result. Two parameters have been selected for the uncertaintyanalysis: fertilization practices and machinery operations. A variation parameter analysis has been carriedout obtaining that assumptions and simplifications made (pre-treatment soil operations and fertilizationrates), which clearly influence on the different impact categories studied. A Monte Carlo analysis hasbeen performed showing Eutrification Potential category is the most affecting by input data uncertaintypropagation, which means the fuel consumption and fertilization rates input data need to be selected froma more accuracy source.