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Lookup NU author(s): Josh Manley, Professor Volker PickertORCiD, Professor Oliver HeidrichORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a conference proceedings (inc. abstract) that has been published in its final definitive form by The International Society of Industrial Ecology, 2025.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Power electronics are essential for the green transition, as they are pivotal to electrifying industry, households and the transport sector (Singh et al., 2022). Power electronics convert and control electric power and are required to power every electric item e.g. mobile phones, medical devices, robotics, electric cars, and renewable energy. Power converter design has centred around design parameters such as efficiency and power density to achieve product specifications. Environmental concerns are largely excluded from the design process. However, growing environmental awareness has necessitated a shift towards sustainable design (Fang et al., 2023). To improve the product's sustainability, the R-strategies (resource, reuse, recycle, repair, etc.) are used to promote material circularity in power electronics (Sangwongwanich et al., 2024). However, it must be recognised that not all R-strategies are equally effective in reducing the environmental impact, they must be tailored to the product. Moreover, the choice of R-strategy can significantly impact power converter design parameters, potentially compromising performance (Romano et al., 2023). Before developing a product, designers must be provided with targeted parameters to fulfil certain functions and sustainability criteria. As each R-strategy impacts the design parameters differently, it is proposed that the R-route must be known first to ensure the product is optimised for both performance and sustainability. Once the R-strategy is in place, the performance metrics can be adapted to align with it. Therefore, the authors propose that the design of future power electronics should be driven by an extended R-strategy, which dictates the type of components, resources, manufacturing, and final disposal options that should be used. To address this challenge, we are presenting an LCA case study of a 2kW inverter which utilises the Activity Browser and ecoinvent 3.10. Based on our findings we propose an R-strategy framework that will guide designers in selecting the most appropriate R-strategy for future power converter development, ensuring optimal sustainability and performance. By comparing the LCA results of different designs and/or end-of-life processing, the environmental aspects are quantified and a decision of which R-strategy to use is justified. By establishing the R-strategy upfront, the power electronics industry can then select the relevant design parameters accordingly. This research aims to develop the necessary tools and methods to enable the implication of R-strategies at the start of the design stage of power electronics.
Author(s): Manley J, Pickert V, Heidrich O
Editor(s): Lynette Cheah; Harn Wei Kua
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: 12th International Conference on Industrial Ecology (ISIE2025)
Year of Conference: 2025
Online publication date: 01/07/2025
Acceptance date: 05/05/2025
Date deposited: 24/03/2026
Publisher: The International Society of Industrial Ecology
URL: https://isie2025.sg/
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/kpxq-5a56
