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Renson_07532000_VanRoy_23452000_2025.pdf
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- Growing concerns about the healthcare footprint raise questions about the design of medical devices. This master’s thesis focuses on a widely used and frequently replaced medical sensor for patients with diabetes, the CGM. As its user base grows, this device will generate increasing amounts of waste in the future. Building on an existing LCA of CGM systems, particularly the Freestyle Libre 2, key environmental hotspots are identified: the single-use plastic applicator, ICs, and the battery, especially significant in MRD. These hotspots drive the implementation of ecodesign strategies, forming a roadmap. First, plastic usage is reduced and a reusable applicator is designed. Then, the focus shifts to the ICs and the battery with three parallel strategies: extending the lifetime, making the IC module reusable, and using a rechargeable battery. These implementations are supported through a battery power profiling, a reverse-engineered electrical schematic, and an analysis of an inductive charger. By normalising the environmental impact of each strategy against the reference LCA, the improvement in environmental burden is assessed. One of the final possible designs in this roadmap shows the best results, with normalised values under 9% for all impact categories compared to the reference. This is the strategy that combines plastic reduction with a rechargeable NiMH battery. Despite this excellent result, it is not necessarily the best strategy across all considerations: the study is product-centered and does not account for manufacturer economic viability, patient willingness to pay or quality of life. Adopting a multilevel perspective could lead to a different conclusion regarding the relevance of the proposed strategies.