Avaliação dos gases de efeito estufa associados ao uso de um forno solar do tipo caixa

Abstract

Faced with the lack of energy autonomy focused on food and the precarious conditions of health and quality of life, added to climate change, an alternative emerges: the solar oven; a device that makes use of the solar energy captured, directly or indirectly, and thus heats and/or cooks' food. With this concern, the general objective of this study is to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction and operation of a box-type solar furnace, applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. To this end, a prototype solar furnace that is in operation at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) was used, where data were collected for the construction of the inventory. Next, the Simapro 9.3.0.2 software, the IPCC 2021 GWP 100a method and the Ecoinvent database were used to compute the impacts associated with the equipment and operation. In a comparative analysis, we considered the prototype of solar furnace and a conventional furnace that consumes LPG, being used by a reference family, from two different contexts of LCA (with or without recycling). The results showed that the annual emissions of the solar oven are 23.40 kg CO2-eq and the conventional oven are 127.62 CO2-eq, when the disposal of the devices is the landfill, for example. When considering recycling after the end of the useful life of the materials, the annual impact is 17.90 CO2-eq for the solar oven and 123.11 CO2-eq for the conventional oven. Thus, it is found that, with the use of the solar oven, the gas emissions are about 80% lower than the conventional oven. Thus, it is visible the contribution that the use of the solar oven has in the mitigation of damage to the environment, but, in addition, when its use is associated with a correct destination of the materials used, it prolongs the life of its components, contributing to the objectives of sustainable development.