WP2: Upstream Environmental Impact Assessment

Iana Câmara Salim1 ; Maria Teresa Moreira1; Vincent Rossi2; Kadambari Lokesh3; Apostolis Koutinas4; Dimitris Ladakis4; Sofia Maria Ioann4; Diego Marazza5; Irena Wojnowska6 ; Francesco Razza7 ; Mathilde Crepy8, Michal Luczynski9

1University of Santiago Compostela, Spain; 2Quantis, Switzerland; 3University of York, UK; 4Agricultural University of Athens, Greece; 5Università di Bologna, Italy; 6University of Warmia and Mazury, Poland; 7Novamont, Italy; 8ECOS, Belgium; 9ChemProf, Poland.

Publications

To investigate the environmental impacts of feedstock production and upstream processing, as regards the STAR-ProBio case studies. The feedstocks considered for the production of the case studies are fermentable sugars from sugar beet pulp, maize grain and maize stover.

Objective

Figure 2. Conversion units for WP2 and WP3

www.star-probio.eu

Steps WP2

This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation action under grant agreement No 727740 with the Research Executive Agency (REA) - European Commission. Duration: 36 months (May 2017 – April 2020). Work Programme BB-01-2016: Sustainability schemes for the bio-based economy.

1. Câmara-Salim, I.; González-García, S.; Feijoo, G. and Moreira, M.T. “Assessing the environmental sustainability of glucose from wheat as a fermentation feedstock.” J Environ Manage. 2019 Oct 1;247:323-332. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.06.016.

2. Câmara-Salim, I.; Feijoo, G. (USC) and Moreira, M.T. “Upstream Environmental Assessment (Chapter 2)” Transition Towards a Sustainable Biobased Economy. Green Chemistry Series No. 64. Pages: 12-43. Royal Society of Chemistry ISBN: 978-1-78801-591-2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/9781839160271-00012

The contents of this poster reflects only the author's view and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Scenarios analysis

Table 1. Scenarios for agricultural activities and pre-treatment processes

The average values from the 20 scenarios for the production of 1 kg of fermentable sugars emit about 0.50 kg of CO2 eq and 6 MJ of energy. However, standard variation values are very high due to the different agricultural systems considered in this study. In this upstream LCA, the outcomes showed that the use of fermentable sugars from beet pulp has less impact than maize grain and stover, consequently reducing the global impacts of the three STAR-ProBio case studies.

Conclusion

WP2 Partners

Figure 1. Steps of Life Cycle Assessment

aPAS = Potential affected species

These results are combined with downstream processes (WP3) to have the global LCA and define thresholds

Thresholds only for upstream processes (see Figure 4)

System boundaries

Results

Table 2. Environmental results to produce 7.5 g of fermentable sugars -1 piece of BoPLA

Figure 4. Threshold values for BIO and SE indicators for maize grain only. Pt= m2*year PAS ∙

Conversion units

Figure 3. Generic overview of the system boundaries for WP2

LCA impact categories

UnitsMaize grain Maize stover Sugar beet pulp

Average STDV Average STDV Average STDV

Global warming potential

kg of CO2 eq 4.25∙10-03 1.62∙10-03 4.81∙10-03 1.47∙10-03 2.43∙10-03 9.81∙10-05

Particulate matter

Disease incidence

2.27∙10-10 1.11∙10-10 2.55∙10-10 9.93∙10-11 1.40∙10-10 3.15∙10-11

Human toxicity, cancer

CTUh 2.39∙10-10 1.89∙10-10 1.74∙10-10 1.32∙10-10 3.23∙10-11 3.65∙10-12

Acidification mol H+eq 5.20∙10-05 2.27∙10-05 4.57∙10-05 2.08∙10-05 1.67∙10-05 1.40∙10-06

Freshwater eutrophication

kg P-eq 8.41∙10-07 4.23∙10-07 1.49∙10-06 3.25∙10-07 8.33∙10-07 3.05∙10-08

Terrestrial eutrophication

mol N-eq 2.84∙10-04 1.58∙10-04 2.08∙10-04 1.12∙10-04 4.04∙10-05 3.92∙10-06

Land use Pt 4.41∙10-01 2.58∙10-01 2.58∙10-01 1.99∙10-01 3.14∙10-02 1.70∙10-02

Water scarcity m3 water deprived 4.96∙10-02 6.52∙10-02 3.61∙10-02 4.26∙10-02 5.24∙10-05 5.84∙10-07

Fossil resource depletion

MJ 4.62∙10-02 1.55∙10-02 6.66∙10-02 1.37∙10-02 3.77∙10-02 1.03∙10-03

Affected biodiversity

m2*year∙PASa 20.5 12.9 15.4 9.02 3.67 5.98∙10-01

Soil erosion Kg soil erosion 5.36∙10-03 6.10∙10-03 3.72∙10-03 6.03∙10-03 1.64∙10-04 1.67∙10-04