Implementation of Eco-Design Actions in the Development of a Sustainable Heat Exchanger in a Life Cycle Perspective

According to the European energy consumption reports, the highest energy consumption in residential sector is due to space heating, followed by water heating. Generally, the product used to warm water in residential building is the boiler where heat exchanger is the core of the system. The paper aims to develop a novel concept of heat exchanger by following eco-design actions retrieved by the analysis of life cycle performance. Several eco-design actions were put into practice to reduce the environmental issues in each phase of the life cycle. Concerning the materials and manufacturing phase, a novel design based on different material (i.e., stainless steel) was developed to replace a mix of materials (i.e., copper and aluminum alloy). Concerning the use phase, the overall product efficiency was increased allowing important savings in terms of gas/energy consumptions. Finally, concerning the end-of-life phase, brazing processes was replaced by other joining processes to increase component’s disassembly and varnishing process was avoided due to the better corrosion resistance performance of the stainless steel. The new heat exchanger shows better environmental performance in each Life Cycle Assessment indicator, saving more than 40% in CO2 emissions (GWP) in the whole product life cycle.