The use of nanostructured materials has been recently proposed in the field of environmental nanoremediation. This approach consists in using nanomaterials not directly, but as building blocks for the design of nano‐porous micro‐dimensional systems, overcoming the eco‐ and health‐toxicology risks generally associated with the use of nano‐sized technologies. Herein we report the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as an eco‐design tool for optimizing the production of cellulose nanosponges (CNS), nanostructured materials recently developed for water remediation purposes. LCA was applied from the acquisition of raw materials to the synthesis of CNS (from cradle‐to‐gate), considering three production systems, from the lab‐level to a modeled scale‐up system. The lab‐scale LCA identified the main environmental hotspots, namely the energy‐consuming steps and the final purification of the material (washing step). In a second lab‐scale production, an improvement action could be implemented, switching the washing solvent from methanol to water and decreasing the washing temperature. A second LCA showed a reduced contribution to the impacts from the materials, while the global impacts remained within the same order of magnitude. A simulated scale‐up of the process allowed to optimize the energy‐consuming steps and the water consumption, through internal recycling. A third LCA assessed the resulting benefits and a decrease in the global impacts by two orders of magnitude. Our study contributes to the discussion of LCA community, providing a focus on the importance of scaling‐up of emerging technologies, namely nanostructured porous materials, highlighting the benefits of a LCA based approach since the very beginning of product design (eco‐design).

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新兴环境技术在开发初期的生命周期评估：以纳米结构材料为例

最近在环境纳米修复领域中提出了使用纳米结构材料。这种方法包括不直接使用纳米材料，而是将其作为纳米多孔微观系统设计的基础，以克服通常与使用纳米技术相关的生态和健康毒理学风险。在此，我们报告使用生命周期评估（LCA）作为生态设计工具来优化纤维素纳米海绵（CNS）的生产，纤维素纳米海绵（CNS）是最近为水修复目的而开发的纳米结构材料。LCA从原材料的获取到CNS的合成（从摇篮到大门）都得到了应用，其中考虑了三种生产系统，从实验室到模型化的放大系统。实验室规模的LCA确定了主要的环境热点，即能耗步骤和材料的最终净化（清洗步骤）。在第二个实验室规模的生产中，可以采取改进措施，将洗涤溶剂从甲醇切换为水，并降低洗涤温度。第二个生命周期评估显示对材料影响的贡献减少，而全球影响保持在同一数量级。通过模拟流程放大，可以通过内部循环利用来优化能耗步骤和用水量。第三个生命周期评估评估了由此产生的收益，并将全球影响降低了两个数量级。我们的研究有助于LCA社区的讨论，重点关注扩大新兴技术（即纳米结构多孔材料）的规模的重要性，