Optimization of food-fuel-fibre in biorefinery based on environmental and economic assessment: The case of sugarcane utilization in Thailand
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Publication Details
Author list: Pongpat, Patcharaporn; Mahmood, Awais; Ghani, Hafiz Usman; Silalertruksa, Thapat; Gheewala, Shabbir H.;
Publisher: Elsevier
Publication year: 2023
Volume number: 37
Start page: 398
End page: 411
Number of pages: 14
ISSN: 2352-5509
eISSN: 2352-5509
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
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Abstract
Biomaterials utilization in biorefineries for food, fuel, and fibre is advantageous in terms of income and employment but may also have certain negative repercussions. This study focused on the optimum utilization of sugarcane-based products considering several sustainability indices, viz., greenhouse gas emissions, production costs, and profitability. The cane and sugar utilization in Thailand was optimized with the help of linear programming considering multiple scenarios, decision variables, and system constraints. Furthermore, the considered scenarios were ranked by following the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The scenario where the additional sugarcane was used for sugar production and the extra molasses was used for ethanol production received the highest ranking, followed by supplying extra bagasse to power plants. Nevertheless, the results showed that polylactic acid production, which has been highly promoted by the government, is still not attractive enough to persuade the industrial sector because of its high production cost. It is also interesting to note that direct ethanol production from excess sugarcane does not yield preferable results in terms of sustainability. The results showed that excess bagasse to power plant dominated the production cost and greenhouse gas emission while the extra sugar to PLA production and bagasse based-electricity could induce high profitability in the system. Based on the different weighting schemes, a sustainability triangle was developed to present the influence areas of the considered scenarios. The concept of a sustainability triangle would be beneficial for the decision-makers to choose the appropriate pathway by explicitly revealing the tradeoffs between the various sustainability aspects. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords
Environmental aspect, Socio-economic aspect
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