Environmental impact of various kayak core materials

Abstract

This thesis compares the environmental impact of fiberglass, Kevlar, carbon fiber, and cork. A kayak company is interested in using cork as a core material, and would like to claim that it is the most environmentally friendly of the four materials listed above. The efficacy of that claim is evaluated by modeling the manufacturing process, generating an input - output model and performing an exergy analysis. The environmental impact of kayak core material construction on the over impact of kayak construction is nominal. Beyond that, the comparison of core materials results in a qualitative ranking from least to most impact, which is fiberglass, cork, carbon fiber then Kevlar. The diversity of impact, from noxious gases, energy use, volatile liquids, land use and toxic wastes necessitates a qualitative analysis when full exergy data wasn't available. Because of this, the comparison was quantitatively based on the energy use and qualitatively based on each chemicals material safety data.