Life Cycle Assessment for Bioethanol Production from Oil Palm Frond Juice in an Oil Palm Based Biorefinery

Siti Jamilah Hanim Mohd Yusof, Ahmad Muhaimin Roslan, Khairul Nadiah Ibrahim, Sharifah Soplah Syed Abdullah, Mohd Rafein Zakaria, Mohd Ali Hassan and Yoshihito Shirai
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Siti Jamilah Hanim Mohd Yusof: Department of Food and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Ahmad Muhaimin Roslan: Department of Bioprocess Technology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Khairul Nadiah Ibrahim: Universiti Kuala Lumpur Branch Campus Malaysian Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering Technology (UniKL MICET), Lot 1988, Kawasan Perindustrian, Bandar Vendor, Alor Gajah 78000, Malaysia
Sharifah Soplah Syed Abdullah: Universiti Kuala Lumpur Branch Campus Malaysian Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering Technology (UniKL MICET), Lot 1988, Kawasan Perindustrian, Bandar Vendor, Alor Gajah 78000, Malaysia
Mohd Rafein Zakaria: Department of Bioprocess Technology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Mohd Ali Hassan: Department of Food and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Yoshihito Shirai: Department of Biological Functions and Engineering, Graduate School of Life Science and System Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Fukuoka 808-0916, Japan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: A study was conducted to estimate the possible environmental impacts arising from the generation of bioethanol from oil palm frond sugar juice in a theoretical oil palm based biorefinery model. A life cycle assessment (LCA) with the gate-to-gate approach was performed with the aid of SimaPro version 8.0 whereby ten impact categories were evaluated. The scope included frond collection and transportation, frond sugar juice extraction, and bioethanol fermentation and purification. Evaluation on the processes involved indicated that fermentation contributed to the environmental problems the most, with a contribution range of 52% to 97% for all the impact categories. This was due to a substantial usage of nutrient during this process, which consumes high energy for its production thus contributing a significant burden to the surrounding. Nevertheless, the present system offers a great option for biofuel generation as it utilizes sugar juice from the readily available oil palm waste. Not only solving the issue of land utilization for feedstock cultivation, the enzymatic saccharification step, which commonly necessary for lignocellulosic sugar recovery could also be eliminated.

Keywords: life cycle assessment; oil palm frond; oil palm frond juice; bioethanol (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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