 The environmental performance of pretreatment technologies for the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanolEmma Smullen, John Finnan, David Dowling and Patricia Mulcahy Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 142, issue C, 527-534 Abstract: Ethanol production from switchgrass has the potential to reduce life cycle GHG emissions by 77–97% relative to petroleum based fuels. This study examines the environmental performance of the chemical pretreatment process employed during lignocellulosic conversion to ethanol in an effort to minimise the environmental impact of pretreatment processing techniques. The study quantifies the impact of four pretreatment chemical processes employing sodium hydroxide, ammonia, methanol and sulphuric acid on five environmental indicators, in order to identify the pretreatment process with the lowest environmental impact. Using SimaPrò life cycle assessment software the emissions output to air, soil and water contributing to the environmental parameters: global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication, acidification, photochemical oxidation demand and marine and human ecotoxicity were assessed. Keywords: LCA; Switchgrass; Ethanol production; Environmental impact (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:142:y:2019:i:c:p:527-534 DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.04.082 Access Statistics for this article Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier |
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