Comparative life cycle assessment of byproducts from sugarcane industry in Pakistan based on biorefinery concept

Journal article

Authors/Editors

SHABBIR H. GHEEWALA

Strategic Research Themes

No matching items found.

Publication Details

Author list: Ghani H.U., Gheewala S.H.

Publisher: Springer

Publication year: 2018

Journal: Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery (2190-6815)

Volume number: 8

Issue number: 4

Start page: 979

End page: 990

Number of pages: 12

ISSN: 2190-6815

eISSN: 2190-6823

URL: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85056825792&doi=10.1007%2fs13399-018-0345-3&partnerID=40&md5=71bafbb7b2d6aed3ce39886fcb0b59cf

Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)

View in Web of Science | View on publisher site | View citing articles in Web of Science

Abstract

A comparative life cycle assessment of the sugarcane biorefinery in different conceptual arrangements was conducted considering four different alternatives with increasing utilization of byproducts. The first alternative with the least use of byproducts was taken as the base case and the fourth alternative was a completely integrated plant with gradually enhanced and efficient use of byproducts. The functional unit was defined as the production of 1 t of sugar in the biorefinery complex. The calculations were performed for the eight most relevant impact categories including global warming, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial acidification, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, human carcinogenic toxicity, mineral resource scarcity, and fossil resource scarcity. Overall, it was observed that for most of the impact categories, the values were progressively reduced with an increased use of byproducts (i.e., prevention of cane burning and its recovery; filter cake, ash, wastewater, and sludge as fertilizer; bagasse and cane trash for high-pressure cogeneration; ethanol as biofuel and recovery of CO2; biogas for waste to energy production). In general, it could be concluded that an enhanced and efficient use of byproducts would significantly improve the environmental performance of the biorefinery complex. ฉ 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

Byproduct, Sugarcane industry