The development of new technologies is a sophisticated, highly complex process, in which the future performance of the technology is significantly affected by decisions made in early stages of development. The application of life-cycle analysis at this early stage will be used to support decisions to pursue a more sustainable direction of technology development.

Within the project, a new technology in the field of micro process technology in early stage of development is investigated by using system analysis methods (in particular Life Cycle Assessment). Object of the study is a micro-reactor for gas to liquid fuel conversion applying Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in offshore applications. The work is divided into two parts, a technical and a methodological one. The technology part is done in collaboration with the Institute for Micro Process Engineering at KIT. Questions dealing with large data uncertainties, feedback of the results in the development process and reliability of the results are investigated in the methodological part. The core of the work deals with the methodological and software-technically combination of modeling approaches in technology development (in the early phase) with the life-cycle assessment.

The results of the project are intended to provide support for decision-making of developers in the early stage of technology development by evaluating the system from a broader perspective.