Integrating Life Cycle Assessment and Material Suitability Testing: Selection of Sustainable Foams for Supporting Artifacts in a Canadian Context

Abstract

As the materials available for cushioning and supporting artifacts change due to innovation, forthcoming policy initiatives, and the growing spotlight on sustainability, it is likely that products available to the cultural heritage field will be different in the coming decades. This thesis project investigated nine different foams for cushioning and supporting cultural heritage artifacts, consisting of recycled content low-density polyethylene (LDPE) foams, a biodegradable LDPE foam, a bio-based foam, and Canadian-made virgin LDPE foams. A life cycle analysis (LCA) using secondary data from the ecoinvent (version 3.9.1) lifecycle inventory database, manipulated using OpenLCA software (version 2.0.2), compared the relative environmental impacts of each foam. The LCA was paired with traditional material suitability tests typically employed in cultural heritage to facilitate decision-making about the potential for a material’s use with cultural heritage artifacts. Three levels of assessment were undertaken, reviewing technical data, executing simple qualitative testing (Oddy testing and compression set testing), and performing compositional analysis (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) to identify potential contents that may negatively affect artifacts. When LCA results and material suitability analysis were considered together, the recycled-content LDPE foams EcoFoam 1.7 and Ethafoam SRC had low global warming potential and presented promising chemical and physical characterization results indicating their potential for temporary use cushioning and supporting artifacts.