Global environmental impact assessment

of the Pb-free shift

Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan

Abstract
Purpose – Using two different conceptual approaches to environmental life-cycle assessment, attributional and consequential, the purpose was to test
the hypothesis that a typical lead free solder paste Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7 is worse than Sn63Pb37 as far as global environmental impacts are concerned.
Design/methodology/approach – Single index weighting indices within the impact methodology Life cycle Impact Assessment Method based on
Endpoint Modelling (LIME) impact methodology, were applied to the flows of three life cycle inventory models and their globally related flows. The LIME
results based on three environmental impact categories, i.e. resource consumption, global warming and ozonelayer depletion are presented and
discussed.
Findings – The attributional LCA (ALCA) results point towards a larger impact for Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7 than Sn63Pb37 mostly due to the higher
Sn and Ag content. This study confirms earlier similar ALCAs. The system expansion for the Consequential LCA (CLCA) did not change this
conclusion.
Research limitations/implications – The present study has not included the affected microelectronics packaging parts of electronic products, nor has
it included toxic effects as they are local. ALCA was considered to be equal to CLCA for Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7, where no Ag nor Sn recycling was included.
Originality/value – For the first time a global environmental impact assessment of the shift to Pb-free solder paste using the LIME weighting method
applied to a CLCA is reported. Environmental life-cycle investigations intended to support decisions of an ecological nature in the microelectronics
packaging industry should benefit from the consequential approach.

Keywords Solders, Modelling, Life cycle costs, Environmental management

Paper type Research paper

Introduction other and to Sn63Pb37 (TL), e.g. using environmental life-

Since, the beginning of electronics production, solders have
been used as interconnection materials and Pb has been
widely used in solder alloys for its proven reliability in
eutectic combination with tin (Plumbridge, 1996).
However, the heavy metal Pb is under certain conditions
harmful to humans, and it has therefore been banned from
use in petrol, water pipes and paint. In Europe, an EU
directive on restrictions on the use of hazardous substances
required the elimination of Pb in electronics, in all but a
number of special applications, by July 1, 2006 (European
Union, 2003). Solder is the main Pb use within electronic
products, therefore Pb-free solders, anticipated to reduce
toxic environmental impact, have and will come into
extensive use (Itsubo et al., 2004a). Although the Pb-free
solders are not entirely new materials, they have not yet
been extensively used. An analysis of the environmental
impacts of Pb-free solders as compared to Sn-Pb solders
would help in avoiding worse alternatives. The most likely
high-volume Pb-free alloys have similar physical properties
to Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7 (LF), however, several Pb-free
material combinations using Sn in combination with Bi,
Cu, Co, In, Sb, Zn, have previously been compared to each
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
19/2 (2007) 18– 28
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0954-0911]
[DOI 10.1108/09540910710836502]
cycle assessment (LCA). Schoenung et al. (2005) presented
an excellent review of the current scientific status of more
or less the whole complex problem related to the industrial
ecology of Pb-free electronics. For LCA, they conclude that
previously performed case studies lack transparency and
therefore could not be easily validated (Schoenung et al.,
2005). Nevertheless, several authors indicate that the Pb-
free shift will be disadvantageous from a global warming
point of view, but advantageous from a toxic emissions
point of view (Verhoef et al., 2004; Itsubo et al., 2004a;
Ekvall and Andræ 2006; Geibig and Socolof, 2005; Andrae
and Liu, 2006). However, the resource issues, for example
the possible scarcity of metals replacing Pb, could also be
important for certain metals, as in 2003 around 120 Gg of
electronic solders were produced of which approximately
12 Gg were used to produce solder paste.
The global environmental impacts, and a tradeoff between
them, can be quantified using methodologies such as the Life
Cycle Impact Assessment Method based on Endpoint
Modelling (LIME) (Itsubo et al., 2004b). Further, to the
author’s knowledge, no entire electronic product has so far
been evaluated, using LCA, when comparing Pb and Pb-free
solders, but that can be explained because most of the Pb that
will be replaced in electronics originates from solders. The
hypothesis for the present research is that there will be
negative environmental impact assessment results globally, as
a consequence of introducing LF paste to replace TL paste.
The staff of the LCA methodology group at AIST is acknowledged for
their support leading to the completion of this paper.

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 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba
The problems addressed in order to attempt to falsify this
hypothesis are:
H1. What are the attributional LIME scores, expressed
in Japanese Yen, for an LCA comparison between LF
and TL?
H2. What is the consequential change in LIME score when
a global change between TL and LF is made?
Environmental life-cycle assessment of solders in
electronics
The total global environmental load and impact on the
biosphere, troposphere, and stratosphere is mainly the result
of the industrial metabolism connected to product systems in
which resources continuously are converted into useful
products and services demanded by human societies.
Environmental LCA is most commonly used by universities
and companies as a method to evaluate the mass balance of
inputs and outputs of specific product systems and to organise
and convert those inputs and outputs into environmental
themes or categories relative to resource use, human health,
and ecotoxicity explained by Rebitzer et al. (2004) and
Pennington et al. (2004). In Figure 1 the phases of LCA and
their inter-relationships are schematically shown.
In this context, an example of a LCA goal could be to
compare the life cycle impact of a mobile phone using Pb and
one without Pb. The scope, which means what is intended to
be included with the system boundary, could be just the
solder life-cycle or also include the life cycles of all those parts
of the phone using Pb, e.g. printed wiring board finishes,
termination finishes, ball grid array interconnections, and
internal chip-to-substrate interconnects for controlled
collapse chip technology (Garner et al., 2000). The
functional unit, the basis of the calculation, must be chosen
and must reflect the function of the life-cycle. In this case, it
could be “the average use of one mobile phone during three
years”. The scope decides which unit processes to quantify in
the inventory analysis within the system boundaries, of which
examples are shown in Figure 2. In LCA a unit process is
Figure 1 The phases in an LCA
1. Goal and Scope
definition
2. Inventory analysis Interpretation
3. Impact
assessment
Source: International Organisation for Standardisation (1997)
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Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28
defined as the smallest system for which data is collected
(Andræ et al., 2005). One variant of LCA is the so-called
attributional LCA (ALCA), sometimes also referred to as
retrospective or accounting LCA. The ALCA aims to specify
how much of the global environmental load within the system
boundaries belongs to a certain human activity. ALCA
commonly uses average data in contrast to specific data, and
is used to compare two or more alternatives and also to find
the most environmentally relevant unit processes. Another
variant of LCA is the so-called Consequential LCA (CLCA)
where the consequences of decisions, such as phasing out Pb
from electronics, are evaluated. These consequences can also
relate to activities outside of the system boundaries, should
these activities be affected (Ekvall and Andræ 2006). In
CLCA, the change in the global environmental load as a
result of adding or removing a specific human activity is
studied. The CLCA make use of marginal data as it is the
marginal producers and consumers that are affected by a
small change. One of the practical problems with the CLCA is
how to identify who these marginal actors will be. An attempt
was made to model the Pb and Pb scrap markets (Ekvall and
Andræ 2006). The inventory flows (obtained in the data
collection step as emissions, resource consumptions, and
waste amounts) from either an ALCA or CLCA, are classified
according to which possible environmental impacts, e.g.
global warming, they could cause. Anthropogenic and
potential environmental impacts, which may be global,
regional, local or a combination of these, include global
warming, ozonelayer depletion, photo-chemical oxidant
creation, acidification, local air pollution, human toxicity,
ecotoxicity, eutrophication, and resource consumption. For
example, the CFC’s are classified as being able to contribute
both to global warming and to ozone layer depletion. After the
classification the flows are characterised according to their
relative importance for each environmental impact indicator.
The present research will focus on the integration of the
environmental impact indicators for resource depletion,
global warming, and ozonelayer depletion as these
environmental effects are global. In Figure 2 the scope of
the present attributional solder paste life-cycle model, as
currently used by most LCA practitioners, is shown. The use
of the electronic product is outside the system boundary.
Figure 3 shows the scope of the present consequential
model from the perspective of the global shift to LF from TL.
Methodology for impact assessment – LIME
Based on a finished inventory analysis where all data sources
are given (Ekvall and Andræ 2006), the method “Life-cycle
Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modelling,
LIME” was applied (Itsubo et al., 2004b). The origin of this
methodology is a study conducted by the LCA National
Project of Japan aiming at the development of a Japanese
version of a damage-oriented impact assessment method. In
LIME, the potential damage is measured for four safeguard
objects: human health, the utilisation of non-renewable
resources (social assets), the increase of extinction risk
(biodiversity), and the loss of primary production caused by
mining of resources (primary productivity) are individually
measured. Modelling socio-economic impact was based on the
concept of user-cost, which accounts for the equity of future
generations. Interviews were performed in Japan where a
statistically representative population answered questions on
 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28

Figure 2 The scope of the attributional model for solder pastes

Primary Sn Primary Ag Primary Cu

production production production

Electricity
production
Bulk alloy
production

Fuel Flux
production Solder powder production
production

Preparation for
Paste solder recycling
production
Solder
incineration

Paste Use of
application Electronic Landfill of
(Reflow soldering) product solder

Figure 3 The scope of the consequential model of the global shift

Production and
Primary Sn Primary Pb Use of complimentary products
production production

Alternative Function of
World Pb use alternative Pb use
Market for
Pb
Function and
Electricity Pb recycling
use of competing products
production
Bulk alloy
production
Scrap collection
World
from
Market for
Fuel other Pb products
Pb scrap
production Solder powder
production
Waste management
of other Pb products
Preparation for
Paste
solder recycling
Flux production
production Solder
incineration

Paste Use of
application Electronic Landfill of
(Reflow soldering) product solder

how they valued different types of damage to the environment.
This approach made it possible to make a monetary weighting
between, e.g. human health and biodiversity. The Yen scores in
this context are what the Japanese society is willing to pay to
avoid a unit of damage, caused by the environmental loadings,
to the safeguard objects shown in Figure 4. The
present research made use of weighted LIME factors
expressed in Yen/kg enabling a comparison and integration of
the damage derived from different impact categories such as
global warming and ozonelayer depletion. In Figure 4 the
LIME concept is shown with a focus on global impacts. Pb
emissions are considered a local impact, as opposed to
compounds belonging to global impact categories, and are
therefore not included within the scope.

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Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28

Figure 4 Conceptual figure of LIME

Impact Category Safeguard
Inventory
category endpoint object
Human-toxic Other cancer
Pb chemical
Crop
production
Ozonelayer Human health
CFC Skin cancer
depletion

CO2 Forestry Social assets

production
Single index,
Yen, ¥
CH4 Global Thermal
warming stress Biodiversity

Infectious
Oil
diseases
Resource Net primary
consumption Terrestial productivity
Sn ecosystem

User
cost
Ag
Vascular
Damage Weighting
Characterisation plant species
assessment
Notes: CFC = ChloroFluoroCarbons. Local toxic emissions like Pb are not part of the scope

For LIME, the resource consumption indices are originally
based on the resource characterisation as developed by the
French company Conception Development Durable
Environment CODDE (2007) for a Raw Material Depletion
(RMD) Indicator. Equation (1) explains how the indicator is
calculated:
X 
1 1
RMD ¼
 £ Ii. . .
Ri kg £ Years
Ri £ Y i ¼ M i
RMD is the total characterisation factor; Ri the available
reserve base of a resource (i) such as a high-grade metal ore,
coal, etc. which realistically can be extracted; Yi the number
of years left of resource (i) considering the rate at which it is
currently depleted; Mi the production of resource (i); and Ii
the inventory flow of resource (i). The inventory flow is the
amount of, e.g. silver needed to produce the functional unit.
Table I shows the figures used to calculate the RMD values.
At this stage the recycling of metals is not included, but would
presumably delay the decrease of Yi.
Owing to lack of comparable cradle-to-gate resource data for
Ag, Pb, Cu and Sn production, it was assumed that the metal
resource consumption was only the produced metal. For
example, for 1 kg of Ag produced, 1 kg of Ag metal resources
was assumed as input, whereas the extraction and processing
energy inputs were taken from the literature. For Ag a mixed
model assuming Ag to be a by-product mainly of Canadian

Zn/Pb and Australian Au production was used (Teck
£ kg
Cominco Metal Ltd, 2004; Stewart and Petrie, 2006; New
Boliden, 2005), for Pb a model assuming Pb to be a product
of primary Pb production (Althaus and Classen, 2005), for
Cu a model assuming Cu to be a by-product of Ni production
(Althaus and Classen, 2005), and for Sn a model assuming Sn
to be a product of primary Sn production (Althaus and
Classen, 2005). However, the most relevant LCI data would
have been a global average for ALCA and the marginal for
CLCA. Further, for the ALCAs, the outflow of printed board
assemblies from the preparation process has a positive
economic value. Therefore, it was not regarded as waste but
a raw material inflow to the life-cycles where the recycled
metals are used. Thus, for ALCA, the metal recycling

Table I The basis for RMD indices

Substance Ri (kg) Mi (kg/year) Yi (year) Reference
Ag 5.7 £ 108 1.97 £ 107 28.9 USGS (2004a)
Sn 1.1 £ 1010 2.64 £ 108 41.7 USGS (2004b)
Cu 9.4 £ 1011 1.46 £ 1010 63.1 USGS (2004c)
Ni 1.4 £ 1011 1.4 £ 109 100 USGS (2004d)
Zn 4.6 £ 1011 9.6 £ 109 47.9 USGS (2004e)
Pb 1.4 £ 1011 3.15 £ 109 44.4 USGS (2004f)
Oil 1.76 £ 1014 3.87 £ 1012 45.4 GeoHive Global Statistics (2004a, b), Tomkiewicz (2006) and Asif and Muneer (2007)
Coal 9.09 £ 1014 3.79 £ 1012 240 GeoHive Global Statistics (2004c, d) and Ekawan and Duchêne (2006)
Natural gas 1.49 £ 1014 2.24 £ 1012 66.7 GeoHive Global Statistics (2004e, f) and Afgan et al. (2007)

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Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28

processes belong to subsequent life-cycles. Owing to lack of Sensitivity check

economic and marginal data, e.g. for the Sn market, the
inventory result for the consequential LF study was assumed
to be identical to the one for the attributional LF study. All
LIME results and others presented below are expressed per
0.53 cm3 solder paste (corresponds to 2.5 g TL having a
density of 4.7 g/cm3, 90 wt% metal alloy and 10 wt% flux)
applied to a printed board assembly before the reflow
soldering process. The quantity 2.5 g was chosen based on the
USEPA study of a typical printed circuit board assembly
(Geibig and Socolof, 2005).
Inventory analysis results
Three LCI’s covering 416 substance flows were investigated.
Totally 97 resources and seven gases were relevant for global
impacts. In Table II the results for nine selected flows are
displayed and they were selected based on an initial LIME
screening of the product systems. Pb is included though it is
presently not quantified for global impact categories. The
column farthest to the right represents the consequential
inventory result of the shift.
Impact assessment results
The results were obtained by multiplying the obtained
inventory data by the corresponding weighting factors
(Itsubo et al., 2004b). The characterisation indices and
LIME factors used in the present study are shown in Table III.
Overall, 98 mass% of the resource input flows, 100 mass%
of the greenhouse gases, and 100 mass% of the ozone
depleting gases, had a corresponding LIME index. The total
LIME scores for the CLCA comparison between TL and LF
were around 1.8 and 3.4¥, respectively. The total
LIME results for the ALCA were also near 1.8 and 3.4¥,
respectively. In Table IV it is shown that Sn and Ag resources
from Sn and Ag production, respectively, were the hot spots
in this study.
Figure 5 shows the LIME result where resource
consumption, global warming and ozonelayer depletion are
weighted into a single index.
The consequence is that the total LIME score will increase
by 1.6¥ or by 90 per cent.
A life-cycle impact assessment method which can be
compared to LIME is the Eco-indicator ‘99 (Eco-i. 99)
method as it is based on the disability adjusted life year
(DALY), concept (Abou-Zahr, 1999). The DALY concept
combines in one score the time lived with disability and the
time lost due to premature mortality. As shown by Table III
Eco-i. 99 has not reported a weighted index for damage to
resources caused by extraction of Ag and some other
resources. The results shown in Figure 6 were obtained by
multiplying the obtained inventory data by the corresponding
weighted damage factors. The major similarity is that
consumption of Sn resources is one of the dominating flows.
Completeness check
The robustness of the results in Figure 5 are hampered by at
least five factors:
1 not all emissions to air and the resources, which
theoretically could have globally related LIME indices,
were reported by Itsubo et al. (2004b), e.g. carbon
monoxide (Holloway et al., 2000);
2 too low resolution of the inventory result, which means
more flows of for example CFC’s could possibly be
“hidden” inside the system boundaries;
3 poor precision in the numerical values of emissions and
resources, which means different kinds of temporal and
measurement uncertainties;
4 poor precision of the LIME indices, which means
different kinds of temporal, spatial, and geographical
uncertainties; and
5 poor representation of unit processes, which means that a
greater number of factories in reality represent the average
presently used.
However, considering what turned out to be the dominating
issues of the study, Ag and Sn resources, the global perspective
of the study, as well as the relatively small product systems, it is
unlikely the results would change drastically should the effects
of these five factors be greatly improved.
Discussion and interpretation
The CLCA and the ALCA results both indicate that the
overall LIME scores in Yen will increase considerably per

Table II Selection of LCI results expressed per functional unit of TL and LF

Substance Category Unit ALCI TL ALCI LF ALCI LF – ALCI TL CLCI TL ALCI LF – CLCI TL
Coal Resource G 83 103 20 82 21
Oil Resource G 12 18 6 15 3
Natural gas Resource G 12 15 3 12 3
Sn Resource G 2.9 3.9 1 2.9 1
Ag Resource G 0 0.16 0.16 0 0.16
Pb Resource G 1.7 0 2 1.7 0.73 20.73
Cu Resource G 0 0.03 0.03 0 0.03
CH4 Emission to air G 0.77 0.94 0.17 0.78 0.16
CO2 Emission to air G 228 290 62 234 56
Pb Emission to air G 0.032 ,0 2 0.032 0.03 20.03
Pb Emission to water G 0.15 ,0 2 0.15 0.13 20.13
Pb Emission to soil G ,0 ,0 0 2 0.001 0.001

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 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28

Table III Indices used

Substance Impact on LIME (Yen/kg) Eco-i. 99 (year/kg) RMD (102 15 3 kg2 1 3 year2 1) GWP20 (kg/kg) ODP (kg/kg)
Ag Resource 6,900 61,000
U Resource 1,030
Sn Resource 390 14 2,200
Wood Resource 105
Cu Resource 53 0.87 16
Ni Resource 47 0.39 71
Zn Resource 45 0.045 45
Mn Resource 39 0.0074
Pb Resource 29 0.18 160
Oil Resource 1.5 0.14 0.13
Coal Resource 1.27 0.006 0.0046
Al Resource 1.18 0.057
Natural gas Resource 0.69 0.11 0.10
Fe Resource 0.44 0.0012
Cr Resource 0.37 0.022
Bauxite Resource 0.19 0.012
Gravel and sand Resource 0.062
Mass of rock Resource 0.062
Rock salt Resource 0.062
C2F6, R-116 Air 22,900 52 7,700
Ozone-depleting gases Air 19,000 27 1
CFC/HCFC Air 19,000 27 1
CF4 Air 11,000 36 3,900
N2O Air 570 1.8 330
CH4 Air 44.3 0.11 64
CO2 Air 1.74 0.0055 1
Notes: Eco-i. 99 ¼ Eco-indicator ‘99 (hierarchist perspective, H, A) weighted damage factors (Dreyer et al., 2003), GWP20 ¼ global warming potential during
20 years, ODP ¼ ozone depletion potential

Table IV Top contributors to LIME single index given per solder paste type
Solder paste Life-cycle stage Unit process Flow Percentage of contribution
TL Manufacturing Sn production Sn resource consumption 62
Use Solder paste application CO2 emissions to air from electricity production 15
Use Solder paste application Coal resource consumption from electricity production 5
LF Manufacturing Sn production Sn resource consumption 45
Manufacturing Ag production Ag resource consumption 31
Use Solder paste application CO2 emissions to air from electricity production 9

functional unit. The most important differences between TL
and LF are two-fold: Sn and Ag resource consumption. The Ag
resources from Ag production are significant due to the
relatively high LIME factor for Ag, about 6,900¥/kg. CO2
emissions from electricity production are also noticeable.
However, considering global warming results alone, it was
earlier reported for a similar inventory to the present study that
the solder application process and the Sn production were the
processes mainly affected (Ekvall and Andræ 2006). The
marginal Pb usage, as a result of the ban on the use of Pb in
solder, will be where the competition is the largest and where
the Pb consumers are most sensitive to a Pb price change. On
the margin, in remote areas, diesel combustion to generate
electricity is expected to be replaced by Pb back-up batteries
(the marginal Pb usage) when Pb is banned in solders.
All impacts attributable to Pb production will not disappear as,
on the margin, Pb will be used in Pb-acid batteries (instead of
solder pastes) which in combination with photovoltaic cells will
replace diesel combustion for electricity generation. In fact,
CLCA helped identify this offset in the impact related to the Pb
production. Figure 6 shows the relative importance for
different processes as evaluated by LIME compared to Eco-i.
99 and the three environmental impact categories on which
they are based. Considering RMD results alone, they show a
big resemblance to the overall LIME results. The present
CLCA study predicts that the LIME score will rise as the
avoidance of the environmental impacts connected to diesel
combustion does not outweigh the increased resource
consumptions and emissions from Ag, Sn, and energy
production.

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Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28

Figure 5 The consequential LIME results expressed per functional unit obtained when subtracting the CLCA TL from the ALCA ( ¼ CLCA) LF

Yen / F.u.
Global LIME (toxicity not included)
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
–0.2
Ot So Sn Ag Di Pb
her lde pro pro ese pro
s rp du du l co du
ast cti cti mb cti
ea on on ust on
pp ion
lic
ati
on

Consequense of shift

Figure 6 The consequential LIME results compared to Eco-i. 99 and environmental impact categories GWP20
100%

80%

60%
Pb production
Diesel combustion
Ag production
40%
Sn production
Solder paste application
Others
20%

0%
Global Eco-i. 99 GWP20 ODP RMD
LIME
–20%
Notes: Global warming potential during 20 years(GWP20), ODP = ozone depletion potential,
RMD = raw material depletion

Further, it is likely that the Eco-i. 99 H, A weighted factor to the lack of inventory transparency. Nevertheless,
for Ag resources would be relatively high, and obviously two similar solder pastes to the present ones were
would indicate more similarities between overall and evaluated by the USEPA. These were Sn63Pb37 (SnPb)
individual Eco-i. 99 and LIME scores. and Sn95.5Ag3.9Cu0.6 (SAC). The results from the
Moreover, electricity production could be of higher environmental impact categories “Nonrenewable resource
importance, although not likely to change any conclusions. The use (NRR)” “global warming (GW)” and ”Ozone depletion
data quality is poor for the model of the scrap Pb market and (OD)” used by USEPA were used for a comparison with the
waste management of competing sources of scrap Pb. However, present LIME analysis. The USEPA functional unit was
this part of the model does not have a big influence on the results. 1,000 cm3 of solder metal alloy applied before the reflow
oven, compared to the present 0.53 cm3 of solder paste.
Other analyses of the shift to Pb-free solders Figure 7 shows the comparative results for the two studies
USEPA performed an attributional cradle-to-grave LCA expressed per USEPA functional unit, where 9,300 g of TL
comparison between Pb solders and Pb-free solders (Geibig and 8,170 g of LF correspond to that measure. The units
and Socolof, 2005). The present study cannot be easily are kg resources for NRR, kg CO2-equivalents for GW, and
compared to the one by USEPA, among other things due kg £ 106 CFC-11-equivalents for ODP.

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 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba
Figure 7 Comparative results for the USEPA solder LCA study and the present regarding three different environmental impacts
kg
2000
1500
1000
500
0
NRR
Environmental impact category
The NRR difference is mainly due to the “inert rock”
resource consumption used in the USEPA model of electricity
generation. The relatively low ODP value for TL is due to
effects identified by the use of CLCA, where the ODP from
alternate Pb usage (battery production) offsets ODP
connected to electricity and Sn production. When the top
contributing inventory flows for NRR, GW and OD for SnPb
and SAC were multiplied by the respective LIME single
index, the Zn-Pb-Cu resource consumption and CO2
emissions related to electricity generation for solder
application were the dominating flows for SAC and SnPb,
respectively. This comparison shows that USEPA did not
characterise the resource consumption, but just reported the
magnitude and top contributors. For example, “inert rock”
having a moderate LIME index, dominated the NRR which
merely reports the amount of resources used. Should another
type of characterisation by for example RMD have been
performed, other flows would have appeared as important.
Furthermore, the analysis of the USEPA study confirmed that
stratospheric ozone depletion is of minor importance for the
LIME score.
Verhoef et al. (2004) and Reuter and Verhoef (2004)
showed that dynamic modelling, as a life-cycle inventory of
the total upstream system, could be useful for assessing the
environmental aspects of the manufacturing of solders. The
system boundaries included the ore processing, metal
production and solder production activities for solder alloys
including Sn60Pb40 and several Pb-free combinations. No
inventory data were reported, but it was evaluated using the
Eco-i. 99 method. However, the question was raised, whether
a ban on use of Pb will lead to an environmental benefit, as
the manufacturing of solders could be considered a global
open loop recycling and production system. Verhoef argues
that the governmental decisions to introduce Pb-free will push
the system out of the existing steady state globally, and while
production of Pb, Cu and Sn would not be affected
significantly, local changes could be important.
Nevertheless, the resource depletion dominated Eco-i. 99
scores were higher for SnAgCu than for Sn-Pb, but became
smaller as the authors changed the weighting of resource
depletion to 5 per cent as compared to the initial settings of
Eco-i. 99. The findings indicated that preventing human
toxicity will instead lead to resource damage. An important
Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28
USEPA SnPb
USEPA SAC
Present study TL
Present study LF
GW ODP
concluding remark is that there exists a limited production
infrastructure for co-products in Pb ore processing. In case of
an extended ban on lead, both the availability and recovery of
a range of metals will be affected (Verhoef et al., 2004; Reuter
and Verhoef, 2004).
Effect of recycling
It is uncertain how much of the Sn, Ag, Pb, and Cu solder
metals that will be recycled will specifically be used for
production of new solders. Quantification of this is especially
important for Ag and Sn. Based on this research increased
recycling of Ag and Sn could be significant in decreasing the
global impact. In the present research it was not possible to
apply the LIME factors for other than global effects, as the
local LIME is adjusted for Japanese conditions. This
screening of the global situation was however useful as it
strengthens earlier results showing that the social and
economic impacts, due to the consumption of resources for
Sn and Ag production, could rise as a result of the shift to Pb-
free solder paste (Itsubo et al., 2004c, p. 441 Figure 2(b)-(c)).
Consequential LCA including Ag and Sn
An important discussion is whether a consequential model for
LF would lead to different conclusions. How much will global
Sn and Ag usage rise as far as electronics solder is concerned?
Using Deubzer’s replacement scenario from the year 2003 to
2006 (Deubzer, 2007) the rise could be from about 68 Gg
before the shift (29 mass% of the global Sn consumption) to
about 113 Gg (35 mass%) for Sn after the shift, and from
0.075 Gg (0.2 mass%) to 3.6 Gg (12 mass%) for Ag (it is
uncertain exactly how much electronic solder is globally used,
but it was about 120,000 tonnes in 2003 and probably more
than 10 per cent more in 2006). It mainly depends on the
primary production, recycling, pricing and electronics market
consumption of these metals, where economies such as that of
China Govern more and more the world market trends for Sn.
The shift to Pb-free solder could lead to a decreased use of Ag
and Sn in a mix of other products. Which marginal Sn
consumers, having the possibility to substitute Sn, are most
sensitive to a change in Sn price? Which marginal Ag
consumers, having the possibility to substitute Ag, are most
sensitive to a change in Ag price? A change in the Sn and Ag
prices will affect the uses of these metals. For some products
25
 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba
the Sn or Ag cost is a small part of the total production cost,
while for others Sn or Ag have important functional
advantages, making the demand for Sn and Ag less sensitive
to changes in the Sn or Ag price. If the marginal products
using Sn cannot replace Sn in the long run, the total Sn
production will go up. This is under the condition that all
other major users of Sn, for example producers of Sn-coated
cans, also use the same amount of Sn after the shift to Pb-free
solder. However, if the Sn price increases too much,
materials such as Al, glass, paper, plastic and Sn-free steel
can substitute for Sn in, for example, pet food cans. On the
other hand, Sn can also find new markets for example as
alloys in automotive balance weights.
As for annual Ag consumption, industrial and decorative
uses, photography and jewelry and silverware represent more
than 95 percent, and the electronics and photography
industries are the main consumers (Lanzano et al., 2006).
The unique properties of Ag restrict its substitution in most
applications. Further, long-term analyses of the Sn and Ag
markets are required to forecast what can happen.
Comparing the ALCA results for TL and LF is not the
same as predicting the consequences of shifting from TL to
LF. Occasionally, as seems to be the case regarding the solders
in the present study, the two techniques, ALCA and CLCA,
more or less provide the same conclusion. It is obvious that
ALCA is too rudimentary for estimating future environmental
impacts, but on the other hand CLCA needs to be more
developed in co-operation with econometricians to be more
accurate and comprehensive.
Conclusions
The following conclusions can be drawn based on the
research carried out in the present study:
.
as far as globally related environmental impacts are
concerned, the shift from TL to LF solder paste is likely to
increase them;
.
a significant increase was detected due to increased Ag
and Sn production;
.
no significant increase in the LIME score could be related
to the increased generation of electricity for the LF solder
application processes as compared to TL;
.
the LIME score is highly dependent on the Ag and Sn
weighting factors;
.
ozone depleting substances had an insignificant influence
on the LIME scores; and
.
this study confirms earlier work reporting that the
resource consumption will be higher for SnAgCu solder
pastes than conventional SnPb.
For LIME it has earlier been shown, in a scenario for Japan,
that the toxicity of Pb was most important leading to the
overall environmental superiority of Pb-free solders. The next
step would be to make a trade-off between the global impact
of the locally related impacts, such as those originating from
the use of human-toxic chemicals, and the known global
impacts. For example, the existence of industrial Pb aerosols
could make way for updated LCA indices (Rankin et al.,
2005).
Globally focused CLCA’s of solders also need to be
improved in a number of areas:
26
Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28
.
the design of quantitative partial economic equilibrium
models for the electricity, Sn and Ag markets and the
corresponding scrap markets for the metals;
.
identification of marginal consumers for Sn, Ag and other
solder metals;
.
marginal data for primary metal production need to be
collected; and
.
system expansion including Au and Ag containing printed
wiring board surface finishes could be worthwhile.
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About the authors
Anders S.G. Andrae received his MSc degree
in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute
of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 1997, his
Licentiate degree and PhD degree in Electronics
Production from Chalmers University of
Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2002 and
2005, respectively. Between 1997 and 2001 he
was at Ericsson working as an Environmental Engineer with
Life Cycle Assessment. He has published 17 papers in refereed
journals and conferences. Since, 2006, he has been a post
doctoral research scientist at the Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST), Research Center for Life Cycle
Assessment, Tsukuba, Japan. He is a Member of the IEEE and
 Global environmental impact assessment of the Pb-free shift
Anders S.G. Andrae, Norihiro Itsubo and Atsushi Inaba
won the IEEE Young Award at the International Conference on
Electronics Packaging in 2006 for the paper entitled
“Consequential Toxicity Assessment of the Global Shift to
Pb-free Solder Paste”. Anders S.G. Andrae is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: a.andrae@aist.go.jp
Norihiro Itsubo received his BSc degree from
Osaka University in Osaka, Japan, and received
his MSc and PhD degrees from University of
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1993, 1995 and 1998,
respectively. Between 1998 and 2001 he was at
the LCA Development Department, Japan
Environmental Management Association For
Industry. In 2001 he became a Research Scientist at AIST’s
Research Center for Life Cycle Assessment (AISTLCA),
Tsukuba, Japan. In 2003 he was awarded by the Reliability
Engineering Association of Japan for his work “LCA of IC
packages”. Between 2003 and 2005 he was a researcher for
the Environmental Assessment Research Team at AISTLCA,
and since 2005 he has been Team Leader for the LCA
Methodology Research Team at AISTLCA. In 2005 he was
appointed Associate Professor at the Environmental and
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Soldering & Surface Mount Technology
Volume 19 · Number 2 · 2007 · 18 –28
Information Studies Department at the Musashi Institute of
Technology, Yokohama, Japan, and splits his time between
Musashi Institute of Technology and AIST. E-mail: itsubo-
n@yc.musashi-tech.ac.jp; itsubo-n@aist.go.jp
Atsushi Inaba received his BSc, MSc, and
PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from
Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976, 1978
and 1981, respectively. Between 1981 and 1986
he was at the National Institute for Resources
and Environment (NIRE) and between 1984 to
1986 at the National Bureau of Standard in the
USA. Between 1990 and 1992 he was at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria before
being appointed Chief of the NIRE Planning Office where he
was from 1999 to 2001. In 2001 he was appointed Director of
AIST’s Research Center for Life Cycle Assessment, Tsukuba,
Japan. In 2005 he was appointed Professor for Research into
Artifacts at the Center for Engineering, The University of
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, and splits his time between the Director
and Professor roles. E-mail: a-inaba@aist.go.jp