Evaluation of Jerusalem artichoke as a sustainable energy crop to bioethanol: energy and CO2eq emissions modeling for an industrial scenario

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAn alternative to the sugar/starch-based crops bioethanol is lignocellulosic biomass, but its utilization to biofuels is still not economically viable. In this context, an increasing interest has arising on the search for specific energy crops that do not require arable lands and are not water intensive, such as Jerusalem artichoke (JA). So, this work consisted on the cultivation of JA on those agricultural conditions and its further evaluation as a sustainable feedstock towards bioethanol. Two strategies of producing bioethanol were evaluated pointing out for the consolidated bioprocessing with the Zygosaccharomyces bailii Talf1 yeast as the best approach for further scale-up, based on energy data analysis and ethanol productivity. Different industrial scenarios were outlined and compared for overall CO 2 eq emissions and energy consumption per liter of ethanol (L EtOH ), using adequate criteria on a cradle-to-gate approach. With no land-use change, no biogenic and no co-products credits, the comparison of the overall energy consumption and CO 2 eq emissions (100% process) from JA ethanol (9 MJ/L EtOH ; 679 g CO 2 /L EtOH ) with sugarcane/sugar beet ethanol (42/29 MJ/L EtOH ; 731/735 g CO 2 /L EtOH ) and with gasoline refinery (15 MJ/L EtOH eq ; 1154 g CO 2 /L EtOH eq ), highlights the JA as an alternative feedstock to be a focus of ethanol research for gasoline blends.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.): A Versatile and Sustainable Crop for Renewable Energy Production in Europe

“…Moreover, results on a hectare basis showed the great potential of JA under low fertilizer input treatment, which had the lowest values of cumulated energy demand and GHG emissions. Additionally, in a recent study, Paixão et al [90] found that, using 100 kg ha −1 of N, the land requirements for JA cultivation in Portugal could be reduced by about 50% as compared with no fertilization condition, without much influence on carbon footprint due to N 2 O emissions. The same authors, comparing the overall energy consumption and CO 2 eq emissions from the JA tuber ethanol process with those from sugarcane/sugar beet and gasoline refinery, interestingly highlighted JA as a promising sustainable alternative feedstock for ethanol fuel gasoline blends.…”

Jerusalem Artichoke: Quality Response to Potassium Fertilization and Irrigation in Poland

“…Jerusalem artichoke is a crop species that most effectively converts solar energy to biomass in both quantitative and qualitative terms [10][11][12][13][14]. Processed biomass is a valuable resource for the production of biofuels [1,3,4,15,16]. Immature aerial parts of H. tuberosus are used in biogas production, whereas straw is processed into solid fuels (pellets, briquettes), and tubers are a high-yielding resource in the production of bioethanol or substrate/cosubstrate in the methane fermentation process [16][17][18].…”

“…However, high levels of genetic/phenotypic variation in H. tuberosus populations lead to considerable differences in yield, even in relatively similar agricultural production systems in Europe [13,20]. Jerusalem artichoke has low agronomic requirements [1,16], it is resistant to a wide range of biotic and abiotic stressors [1,[21][22][23], and prevents soil erosion [17]. The species easily adapts to diverse environments [8], therefore it can be effectively grown for energy production on marginal land [4].…”

A New Aspect for In vitro Propagation of Jerusalem Artichoke and Molecular Assessment Using RAPD, ISSR and SCoT Marker Techniques

“…Its tubers are rich in inulin (Monti et al, 2005;Tassoni et al, 2010), a valuable source of fructose which is frequently prescribed for diabetics (Rani, 1997). J. artichoke is exploited for a wide range of uses or technologies where it is cultivated as a forage and vegetable crop, or a source of inulin which is fundamental for food, medical and industrial purposes (Kaszás et al, 2018) as well as for bioethanol production (Long et al, 2016;Paixão et al, 2018;Kotsanopoulos et al, 2019). J. artichoke has been intensively investigated recently due to its advantageous characteristics including the high tolerance to different stresses such as drought (Puangbut et al, 2017), salinity (Fang et al, 2018;Luo et al, 2018), waterlogging (Yan et al, 2018) and the high productivity and elevated growth rate with minimal to zero fertilizer requirements (Kotsanopoulos et al, 2019).…”