About Life Cycle Assessment
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is typically used at earlier stages of the manufacturing process of sustainable materials and devices. We analyse here two types of strategies targeting electrochemical energy storage devices employing ionogels and Si-based materials and hybrid organic-inorganic devices accommodating borazines [1].We first discuss LCA to systematically evaluate the environmental performance of model electrolytes based on ionogels, focusing on synthesis processes and potential areas for optimization. By using the ReCiPe 2016 and EF 3.1 impact assessment methods as well as Monte Carlo simulations, key environmental hotspots are identified, including the significant energy requirements of ionogels synthesis and the reliance on non-renewable feedstocks.This research underscores the critical role of LCA in guiding sustainable innovation in the energy sector, providing actionable insights for researchers, manufacturers, and policymakers to minimize environmental burdens and foster a circular economy. We next present the assessment of the energetic and environmental sustainability of organic borazines preparation. The analysis looks into four batch processes from the literature and identifies electricity consumption as the primary contributor to environmental and human health impacts. Additionally, the study demonstrates that adopting a continuous-flow approach, which reduces electricity consumption and leverages safer reaction media such as 2-methyltetrahydrofuran, characterized by an exceptional recovery rate (90%), results in a notable 11% reduction in emissions.
[1] F. Campana et al. Chemical Engineering Journal 504 (2025), 158822.
About Sorin Melinte
Sorin Melinte is professor at Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. He joined the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics (ICTEAM) in 2002. He is currently the academic responsible of WINFAB (Wallonia Infrastructure for Nano FABrication). As a Research Associate of the Belgian F.R.S. – FNRS, he initiated a series of projects addressing molecular and wearable electronics and developed an internationally competitive research program in silicon-based nanoarchitectonics. He studies areas of nano- and microelectronics where molecular technologies dominate the structural design and the electronic behavior of devices. Recent investigations targeting hybrid inorganic-molecular scaffolds for optoelectronics, bio-electronics and distributed electronics, that have used simple methods of fabrication challenging established Si machining technologies, demonstrated that hybrid organic-inorganic nanoarchitectonics provides a unified strategy for the next generation smart sensing interfaces. He co-authored more than 100 articles, attracting several research highlights and journal covers, and holds several international patent applications. After obtaining his PhD degree at UCLouvain (2001), he was Visiting Research Fellow, Princeton University, Princeton, USA, with the team of Prof. M. Shayegan in the framework of a NSF–NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Science and Engineering (2001–2002). He develops quantum sensing technologies with the team of Prof. H.C. Manoharan, Stanford University, Stanford, USA, since 2009. He is Associate Editor in the board of Nanobiotechnology(specialty section of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology and Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences).