A comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of Jatropha biodiesel production in India

a b s t r a c tBiodiesel is a renewable and sustainable biofuel. There are various production processes to produce biodiesel from different kinds of raw materials. In this study, the environmental impacts of biodiesel production from non-edible Jatropha oil and waste cooking oil (WCO) were investigated and compared using systematic life cycle assessment. The results show that crops growing and cultivation of non-edible Jatropha curcas lead to higher environmental impacts compared to WCO process. However, biodiesel production process from Jatropha oil has better performance because the WCO process needs to consume variety of chemicals and requires a large amount of energy for the pretreatment of raw WCO and further chemical conversion to biodiesel. Results also indicate that the collection mechanism of WCO has significant contributions towards environmental impacts. In general, biodiesel production from Jatropha oil shows higher impacts for damage categories of climate change, human health and ecosystem quality whereas biodiesel production from WCO has more severe environmental impacts for resource category. The total environmental impact is 74% less in case of using WCO as raw material compared to non-edible Jatropha oil.

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“…Inventory requirements for Jatropha crop cultivation, harvesting and seeds oil extraction were adopted from literature [43]. The Fig.…”

Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci) and Life Cycle Impact Assessment mentioning

confidence: 99%

Process simulation and life cycle analysis of biodiesel production

2016

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“…The difference in NER was due to different energy inputs at all stages of the life cycle. A study undertaken by Kumar et al [77] in India revealed that in irrigated scenario, GHG emission reduction ranged from 50 to 107 %, as compared with rain fed (40-90 %). NER for irrigated and rain fed areas ranged from 1.5 to 8.6 and 1.2 to 7.0 respectively.…”

Section: Locationmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Pleanjai and Gheewala [41] 2009 Full chain energy analysis of bio-diesel production from palm oil Kumar et al [77] 2012 Energy consumption of bio-diesel production Chatterjee et al [78] 2012 NEB and NER for Jatropha plantation for irrigated and non-irrigated soil Rajaeifar et al [82] 2014 Energy LCA of soybean…”

Section: Authorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Environmental Impacts and Allocation Methods Used in LCA Studies of Vegetable Oil-Based Bio-diesels

Chatterjee

Sharma²,

Mukherjee

2015

Waste Biomass Valor

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used during the life cycle of a product, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management. The methods of development in LCA have been strong, and the paper is aimed at providing a review of recent developments of LCA methods employed in the production of biodiesel from various vegetable sources like Jatropha, palm, soybean, sunflower, canola and rapeseed. The essential features of LCA methods like the goal, scope definition and system boundaries have been reviewed and authors have mainly focussed on impact categories on environment and energy. The review also covers impact categories like human health, ecosystem quality and resource depletion. The interpretation of results indicates that the implication of LCA is strong in energy analysis of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and there is less GHG emission in second generation bio-diesel as compared to first generation. Some uncertainties and gaps in the application of LCA are identified and discussed. The uncertainties are mainly due to inconsistent choices across different allocation, system boundaries, time period in impact assessment and scope of the analysis. The uncertainties are dealt by tools like Monte Carlo simulations, fuzzy set theory etc.

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“…Conventional alkali-catalyzed and supercritical methanol processes for biodiesel production from palm oil were studied by Kiwjaroun et al (2009), with significantly higher environmental loads obtained for the supercritical process in Thailand. The production of jatropha biodiesel in India yielded GHG emission reduction values between 50 and 107 % (Kumar et al 2012). Three energy crops (rapeseed, sunflower, and soybean) were studied by Tsoutsos et al (2010) for Greek conditions, presenting clear environmental benefits when compared to regular diesel.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Life cycle assessment of the transesterification double step process for biodiesel production from refined soybean oil in Brazil

Carvalho

Silva

Andersen

et al. 2016

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Biodiesel has been attracting considerable attention as being a renewable, biodegradable, and nontoxic fuel that can contribute to the solution of some energy issues as it presents potential to help mitigate climate change. The Life Cycle Assessment of biodiesel from soybean oil (transesterification double step process) was carried out herein. A pilot plant was considered, designed to produce 72 L of biodiesel in daily continuous flow, throughout a lifetime of 15 years (8000 annual hours). The materials and equipment utilized in the construction of the plant were considered as well as the energy and substances required for the production of biodiesel. Environmental impact assessment method IPCC 2013 GWP 100a was utilized within the SimaPro software to express the final result in kg CO2-equivalent. The results quantified the CO2 emissions associated with biodiesel production throughout the lifetime of the production plant (15 years), resulting in a total value of 1,441,426.05 kg CO2-eq. (96,095.07 kg CO2-eq. per year), which was equivalent to 4.01 kg CO2-eq. per liter of biodiesel produced. Decrease of environmental loads associated with the production of biodiesel could include improvements on the handling of biomass agriculture and on the technology production of biodiesel.

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A comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of Jatropha biodiesel production in India

Cited by 111 publications

References 9 publications

Process simulation and life cycle analysis of biodiesel production

Process simulation and life cycle analysis of biodiesel production

The Environmental Impacts and Allocation Methods Used in LCA Studies of Vegetable Oil-Based Bio-diesels

Life cycle assessment of the transesterification double step process for biodiesel production from refined soybean oil in Brazil

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