Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Different Pretreatment and Product Separation Technologies for Butanol Bioprocessing from Oil Palm Frond

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment is a crucial aspect of biofuels production to ensure that the process generates emissions within the designated limits. In typical cellulosic biofuel production process, the pretreatment and downstream processing stages were reported to require a high amount of chemicals and energy, thus generating high emissions. Cellulosic butanol production while using low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment was expected to have a low chemical, water, and energy footprint, especially when the process was combined with more efficient downstream processing technologies. In this study, the quantification of environmental impact potentials from cellulosic butanol production plants was conducted with modeled different pretreatment and product separation approaches. The results have shown that LMAA pretreatment possessed a potential for commercialization by having low energy requirements when compared to the other modeled pretreatments. With high safety measures that reduce the possibility of anhydrous ammonia leaking to the air, LMAA pretreatment resulted in GWP of 5.72 kg CO 2 eq./L butanol, ecotoxicity potential of 2.84 × 10 −6 CTU eco/L butanol, and eutrophication potential of 0.011 kg N eq./L butanol. The lowest energy requirement in biobutanol production (19.43 MJ/L), as well as better life-cycle energy metrics performances (NEV of 24.69 MJ/L and NER of 2.27) and environmental impacts potentials (GWP of 3.92 kg N eq./L butanol and ecotoxicity potential of 2.14 × 10 −4 CTU eco/L butanol), were recorded when the LMAA pretreatment was combined with the membrane pervaporation process in the product separation stage.

Advances and opportunities in integrating economic and environmental performance of renewable products

“…These studies are mostly limited to gate-to-gate [44] or cradle-togate [45] assessments. Other contributions have used the LCA to benchmark upstream and downstream technologies [46]. Still, LCA studies are absent for many widely traded biochemicals, such as fumaric acid or methyl levulinate [30], which remain at low levels of maturity (< 5 TRLs).…”

Obtenção de micro e nanocelulose a partir de biomassa lignocelulósica de resíduo do ingá-cipó (Inga edulis Mart.) via tratamento químico

“…A celulose não cristalina apresenta uma estrutura desorganizada que a torna mais suscetível à degradação por reagentes químicos e/ou enzimas, enquanto a cristalina possui características, como hidrofilicidade, grande área superficial e biodegrabilidade, que a tornam mais atrativa para aplicações em biomateriais (WANG et al, 2021). Nesse contexto, na incessante busca por novos materiais poliméricos que possuam alta disponibilidade, baixo custo e fácil degradação em comparação aos polímeros derivados do petróleo faz com que a celulose e seus derivados sejam cada vez mais utilizados em diversos ramos (KOUADRI;SATHA, 2018;MAHMUD;ROSENTRATER, 2019).…”

Determination of Various Parameters during Thermal and Biological Pretreatment of Waste Materials

“…Pretreatment can partially remove lignin and hemicellulose, and often also cellulose (such as by cellulose-degrading enzymes [13], rumen fluid [14], white rot fungi [15], etc.). Ideally, pretreatment should be simple, with a low environmental footprint [16] and should be economically efficient [17], while it should produce pretreated substrate that is easily hydrolyzed/fermented, and should avoid the loss of the desirable fraction of the material and the formation of inhibitory compounds [18].…”