Life cycle assessment of bacterial cellulose production

Abstract

Purpose Bacterial cellulose (BC), obtained by fermentation, is an innovative and promising material with a broad spectrum of potential applications. Despite the increasing efforts towards its industrialization, a deeper understanding of the environmental impact related to the BC production process is still required. This work aimed at quantifying the environmental, health, and resource depletion impacts related to a production of BC. Methods An attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to a process design of production of BC, by static culture, following a cradle-to-gate approach. The LCA was modeled with GaBi Pro Software using the ReCiPe 2016 (H) methodology with environmental impact indicators at midpoint level. The functional unit was defined as 1 kg of BC (dry mass), in 138.8 kg of water. Results From the total used resources (38.9 ton/kg of BC), water is the main one (36.1 ton/kg of BC), most of which (98%) is returned to fresh waters after treatment. The production of raw materials consumed 17.8 ton of water/kg of BC, 13.8 ton/ kg of BC of which was for the production of carton packaging, culture medium raw materials, and sodium hydroxide (for the washing of BC). The remaining consumed water was mainly for the fermentation (3.9 ton/kg) and downstream process (7.7 ton/kg). From the identified potential environmental impacts, the production of raw materials had the highest impact, mainly on "Climate change", "Fossil depletion", "Human toxicity, non-cancer", and "Terrestrial toxicity". The sodium dihydrogen phosphate production, used in the culture medium, showed the highest environmental impacts in "Human toxicity, non-cancer" and "Terrestrial ecotoxicity", followed by corn syrup and carton production. The static culture fermentation and downstream process showed impact in "Climate change" and "Fossil depletion". Conclusions Per se, the BC production process had a small contribution to the consumption of resources and environmental impact of the BC global life cycle.

Static Culture Combined with Aeration in Biosynthesis of Bacterial Cellulose

“…Forte et al [ 43 ] note that the manufacture of BC by using individual strains under production environments is quite limited, whereas the production of BC by using symbiotic cultures is traditionally widely practiced in the Asian-Pacific Region. The production of BC by a using symbiotic culture currently continues to broaden, including that for technical applications [ 25 , 44 , 45 , 46 ].…”

Growing Bacterial Cellulose-Based Sustainable Functional Bulk Nanocomposites by Biosynthesis: Recent Advances and Perspectives

“…Benefiting from the advantages of biosynthesis and the characteristics of cellulose-based composite materials, these BC-based materials achieve better sustainability throughout the entire life cycle than plastics, from raw material processing to final product disposal. ,− Just like the process from the construction to natural degradation of biological materials, such sustainable life cycle is mainly embodied in the renewable raw materials, the low energy consumption and carbon emission of the production process, low environmental impact during use, and the natural degradability of final products.…”

Bacterial cellulose: Strategies for its production in the context of bioeconomy

“…Studies related to life cycle assessment of the BC production process by static culture have been demonstrated that water is the main resource used (36 ton/kg), followed by the production of raw material (18 ton/kg), carton packs (14 ton/kg), and fermentation process (4 ton/kg). Of this total, about 98% are recovered after treatment; in addition, few environmental impacts were identified, especially when industrial waste was used as raw material [22, 31].…”

“…BC purification processes require lower energy amount than that required for other cellulosic materials—mainly due to its purity—and it enables reducing processing costs [21]; for example, considering an industry with capacity to produce 500 tons BC per year, the electric power consumption is estimated at around 360 kWh [22]. Besides that, BC purification generally requires nonaggressive chemicals at room temperature, such as sodium hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, and/or sodium hypochlorite [23].…”