Life-Cycle Assessment of Biochemicals with Clear Near-Term Market Potential

Abstract

The urgent need for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions to mitigate climate change calls for accelerated biorefinery development and biochemical deployment to the market as structural or functional replacements for chemicals produced from fossil-derived feedstocks. This study evaluated the energy and environmental impacts of 15 biochemicals with clear near-term market potential and their fossil-based counterparts, when applicable, on a cradle-to-gate basis. Three of these chemicals are produced exclusively from biomass; eight are predominantly produced from fossil-derived feedstocks; and four are predominantly produced from biomass. For the 12 cases that can be produced from either feedstock, eight exhibited fossil energy consumption and GHG emission reductions when produced from biomass instead of fossil-derived feedstocks between 41%−85% and 35%−350%, respectively. Water consumption results were mixed because several of the biobased pathways consumed more water. Annually, replacing the predominantly fossil-fuel-based chemicals with biobased alternatives could avoid 120 MMT CO 2 e emissions and save 1,500 PJ of fossil energy. The potential of these chemicals as coproducts in integrated biorefineries was analyzed in terms of market, economics, and environmental effects with an emphasis on GHG emissions. Adipic acid, succinic acid, acrylic acid, propylene glycol, 1,4-butanediol, 1,3-butadiene, furfural, and fatty alcohol are promising coproduct candidates based on their low life-cycle GHG emissions.

The forefront of chemical engineering research

“…For example, if a plastics recycling technology that recovers monomers is more energy intensive than monomer production from virgin raw materials, that technology either should be further developed to cut energy consumption or set aside in favor of technologies that do offer life-cycle environmental advantages. Furthermore, replacing fossil fuel feedstocks with bio-based feedstocks does not always result in lower life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions 10 . lCa is essential for evaluating whether such technology shifts can offer the improvements they may promise qualitatively.…”

Biomanufacturing and One Health

“…Much evidence seems to bear this out. 8,9,10 From a human, animal and environmental health perspective, there are no more pertinent examples than the fossil-based thermoplastics, which are non-biodegradable over hundreds of years, but are subject to fragmentation into microplastics and nanoplastics in the oceans, the destination of many millions of tonnes per annum.…”

Catalytic Transformation of Carbohydrates into Renewable Organic Chemicals by Revering the Principles of Green Chemistry

“…When choosing feedstock, reagents, and products, emphasis is given to the entire life cycle assessment (LCA) of the materials, often referred to as the “cradle to grave” assessment, to make informed decisions . LCA is widely used to quantify the environmental benefits of biochemicals over their life cycle . The techno-economic analysis (TEA) of biochemicals gives qualitative and quantitative data about the technological maturity of the processes, feasibility from the economic perspective, and market readiness .…”