In recent literature, prospective application of life cycle assessment (LCA) at low technology readiness levels (TRL) has gained immense interest for its potential to enable development of emerging technologies with improved environmental performances. However, limited data, uncertain functionality, scale up issues and uncertainties make it very challenging for the standard LCA guidelines to evaluate emerging technologies and requires methodological advances in the current LCA framework. In this paper, we review published literature to identify major methodological challenges and key research efforts to resolve these issues with a focus on recent developments in five major areas: cross‐study comparability, data availability and quality, scale‐up issues, uncertainty and uncertainty communication, and assessment time. We also provide a number of recommendations for future research to support the evaluation of emerging technologies at low technology readiness levels: (a) the development of a consistent framework and reporting methods for LCA of emerging technologies; (b) the integration of other tools with LCA, such as multicriteria decision analysis, risk analysis, technoeconomic analysis; and (c) the development of a data repository for emerging materials, processes, and technologies.

中文翻译：

---

新兴技术的生命周期评估：回顾

在最近的文献中，在低技术准备水平（TRL）下对生命周期评估（LCA）进行前瞻性应用已经引起了极大的兴趣，因为它具有开发具有改善的环境性能的新兴技术的潜力。但是，由于数据有限，功能不确定，扩展问题和不确定性，标准LCA指南评估新兴技术非常具有挑战性，并且需要在当前LCA框架中进行方法上的改进。在本文中，我们回顾了已发表的文献，以确定主要的方法学挑战和解决这些问题的关键研究工作，重点是五个主要领域的最新发展：跨研究可比性，数据可用性和质量，规模扩大问题，不确定性和不确定性沟通和评估时间。我们还为将来的研究提供了一些建议，以支持对处于低技术准备水平的新兴技术进行评估：（a）为新兴技术的生命周期评估制定一致的框架和报告方法；（b）将其他工具与LCA相集成，例如多准则决策分析，风险分析，技术经济分析；（c）开发用于新兴材料，工艺和技术的数据库。