Sustainability Making the ecological footprint transparent

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With the Pasio 700, Schenck Rotec has not only introduced a new balancing machine, but also determined the Product Carbon Footprint according to ISO 14067 for the first time. This has led to valuable insights.

Fans, spindles, armatures, compressors—in many industrial applications, rotors need to be measured, balanced and checked. With the Pasio balancing machine, Schenck Rotoc offers smaller businesses and workshops, as well as manufacturers and OEMs, a machine for horizontal balancing that is not aligned to a specific rotor type. Instead, the machine covers the entire spectrum: from cylindrical rotors with their own journal to disc-shaped rotors with auxiliary shaft. It is suitable for individual rotors as well as for series, to measure unbalances, determine their position, support the operator in balancing and perform a control measurement. And the new Pasio, with its three size gradations, can accommodate rotor weights from 1 to 700 kilograms. The design as a modular construction kit system thus offers flexibility to all users.

In addition to the criteria of form and function as well as global usability, the developers at Schenck Rotec particularly focused on sustainability in the design of the machine: In cooperation with the Fraunhofer IBP, a Product Carbon Footprint (according to ISO 14067) of six to 16 tons of CO₂ equivalents was determined over the entire life cycle of 15 years.

Our customers can use the Carbon Footprint for their own emission assessments.

Jonas Schuch, Manager Sustainability at Schenck Rotec

"Determining the Product Carbon Footprint of the Pasio 700 was an important step in making the ecological footprint of our new balancing machine more transparent," explains Jonas Schuch, Sustainability Manager at Schenck Rotec. "This allows us to offer our customers the opportunity to use this parameter for their own emission assessments." In addition, the ecological footprint provides the company with the basis to make future developments even more sustainable.

Quantification of the Carbon Footprint together with the Fraunhofer IBP

The quantification of the Carbon Footprint for the Pasio 700 horizontal balancing machine was implemented together with Fraunhofer IBP in a joint research project. The calculations were carried out using the principles of Life Cycle Assessment based on the DIN EN ISO 14067 standard. This process determines the greenhouse gas emissions from the procurement of raw materials to the end of the product's life.

The Carbon Footprint for the Pasio 700, for the scenarios considered and the entire life cycle with a usage duration of 15 years, lies between 6,563 and 16,002 kg CO₂ equivalents. The value for the average reference machine is 9,516 kg CO₂ equivalents. For classification: Four business class flights between Frankfurt and New York correspond to about 9,000 kg CO₂ equivalents (Source: Federal Environmental Agency CO₂ Calculator My CO2 Balance: Air Travel, CO2 Calculator of the Federal Environmental Agency)

To ensure that scientifically sound methods are used for the analysis, Jonas Schuch and his colleagues have chosen the Fraunhofer IBP as an experienced partner. The parent company of Schenck Rotec, Dürr AG, has also carried out similar projects with the Fraunhofer IBP on ecological balance in the past—with good experiences, as Schuch knows.

Greenhouse gas emissions from production and use captured

In addition to comprehensive advice, Fraunhofer IBP supported the purchasing, product development and product management departments in data collection, fed missing emission data from a scientific database, developed a calculation model and summarized the results in a report. Included in the determination are the climate gas emissions attributable to production (materials, processing steps, transports) and the usage phase (including twelve usage scenarios and two energy mixes). An emission credit was calculated for the end of the machine's life, based on the recyclability of the various components.

An example illustrates this: According to the analysis, a Pasio 700 balancing machine has the smallest environmental impact when operated with a 50 kg rotor in batch size 1 (i.e., ten percent machine utilization) in single-shift operation (eight hours per day). With a usage time of 15 years and the reference electricity mix, this results in around 8,400 kg CO₂e. Using renewable energies emits only 6,563 kg CO₂e in this period. The use of pure green electricity thus reduces greenhouse gas emissions in this case by approximately 22 percent.

As usual for such a project, Schuh and his colleagues had to overcome some obstacles. The project was scheduled for two months. "In retrospect, this turned out to be tight," Schuch explains. Since the colleagues from the departments implemented the topic in addition to their other tasks, capacity conflicts arose. "Therefore, in total, just under three months were needed until we held the result report including the Product Carbon Footprint in our hands," the Sustainability Manager reports. In addition, the experts checked the entire machine parts list for the consistency of the material master data to ensure a clean database for modeling. This parts list comprises about 1000 lines, "a time expenditure that we initially underestimated," says Schuch.

A large part of the emissions are caused before delivery

The fact that the machine already causes a large part of the emissions by the time it is delivered to the customer was one of the insights Schuch and colleagues gained over the course of the project. In the usage phase, on the other hand, emissions are relatively low, especially when electricity from renewable energy sources is used for machine operation. The drive technology used also contributes to this; it enables energy recovery. Schenck Rotec uses the knowledge gained for the continuous improvement and further development of sustainable products. Thus, the acquired knowledge about material with a relatively high CO₂ footprint flows into future product developments; it is replaced by components produced sustainably.

The response to the CO₂ footprint of the Pasio 700 at EMO 2023 in Hanover was positive, reports Jonas Schuch. The fact that Scheck Rotec was the only balancing machine manufacturer at the trade fair to have shown such a value for a machine reinforces Schuch in the knowledge that he is playing a pioneering role here. "I strongly suspect that interest in the Product Carbon Footprint will increase significantly in the future," predicts Jonas Schuch. "Providing this value offers customers an important decision-making aid when choosing sustainable machines for their business activity."