MPW Life Cycle Assessment

A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to evaluate the environmental impact of the Metal Powder Works (MPW) DirectPowder™ Process in comparison to traditional atomization techniques used to produce metal powders for additive manufacturing applications. Publicly available literature was used as data sources for benchmarking water and gas atomization processes as well as the impact of using renewable energy sources. Overall, the DirectPowder™ Process has the potential to reduce the emission of CO2 equivalents by as much as 89% compared to water atomization and by as much as 83% compared to gas atomization when process yields are accounted for. When renewable energy is considered as the primary energy source, the Metal Powder Works DirectPowderTM Process can reduce the emission of CO2 equivalents by as much as 97% compared to utilizing the United States electric grid as a power source. These values are conservative estimates based on the input data used in the analysis, available literature, and assumptions made during the study.