Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas and Water Intensity of Cellulosic Biofuel Production Using Cholinium Lysinate Ionic Liquid Pretreatment

Carbon capture and utilisation provide a means to mitigate climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by delaying carbon emissions via temporary storage in goods. This article presents a...

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Use of ensiled biomass sorghum increases ionic liquid pretreatment efficiency and reduces biofuel production cost and carbon footprint

Green Chemistry ◽

10.1039/d0gc03260c ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (8) ◽

pp. 3127-3140

Author(s):

Harsha D. Magurudeniya ◽

Nawa Raj Baral ◽

Alberto Rodriguez ◽

Corinne D. Scown ◽

Jeff Dahlberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquid ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Production Cost ◽

Biofuel Production ◽

Ionic Liquid Pretreatment ◽

Biomass Sorghum ◽

Pretreatment Conditions

The use of ensiled biomass sorghum enables implementation of relatively mild pretreatment conditions compared to non-ensiled sorghum and results in higher sugar yields, which reduces the biofuel production cost and associated carbon footprint.

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Robust paths to net greenhouse gas mitigation and negative emissions via advanced biofuels

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1920877117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (36) ◽

pp. 21968-21977 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

John L. Field ◽

Tom L. Richard ◽

Erica A. H. Smithwick ◽

Hao Cai ◽

Mark S. Laser ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation ◽

Biofuel Production ◽

Transport Sector ◽

Grassland Restoration ◽

Mitigation Potential ◽

Cellulosic Biofuel ◽

Negative Emissions

Biofuel and bioenergy systems are integral to most climate stabilization scenarios for displacement of transport sector fossil fuel use and for producing negative emissions via carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the net greenhouse gas mitigation benefit of such pathways is controversial due to concerns around ecosystem carbon losses from land use change and foregone sequestration benefits from alternative land uses. Here, we couple bottom-up ecosystem simulation with models of cellulosic biofuel production and CCS in order to track ecosystem and supply chain carbon flows for current and future biofuel systems, with comparison to competing land-based biological mitigation schemes. Analyzing three contrasting US case study sites, we show that on land transitioning out of crops or pasture, switchgrass cultivation for cellulosic ethanol production has per-hectare mitigation potential comparable to reforestation and severalfold greater than grassland restoration. In contrast, harvesting and converting existing secondary forest at those sites incurs large initial carbon debt requiring long payback periods. We also highlight how plausible future improvements in energy crop yields and biorefining technology together with CCS would achieve mitigation potential 4 and 15 times greater than forest and grassland restoration, respectively. Finally, we show that recent estimates of induced land use change are small relative to the opportunities for improving system performance that we quantify here. While climate and other ecosystem service benefits cannot be taken for granted from cellulosic biofuel deployment, our scenarios illustrate how conventional and carbon-negative biofuel systems could make a near-term, robust, and distinctive contribution to the climate challenge.

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Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Different Pretreatment and Product Separation Technologies for Butanol Bioprocessing from Oil Palm Frond

Energies ◽

10.3390/en13010155 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 155 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nazira Mahmud ◽

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle ◽

Environmental Impact ◽

Energy Requirement ◽

Downstream Processing ◽

Biofuel Production ◽

Butanol Production ◽

Processing Technologies ◽

Anhydrous Ammonia ◽

Cellulosic Biofuel ◽

Product Separation

Environmental impact assessment is a crucial aspect of biofuels production to ensure that the process generates emissions within the designated limits. In typical cellulosic biofuel production process, the pretreatment and downstream processing stages were reported to require a high amount of chemicals and energy, thus generating high emissions. Cellulosic butanol production while using low moisture anhydrous ammonia (LMAA) pretreatment was expected to have a low chemical, water, and energy footprint, especially when the process was combined with more efficient downstream processing technologies. In this study, the quantification of environmental impact potentials from cellulosic butanol production plants was conducted with modeled different pretreatment and product separation approaches. The results have shown that LMAA pretreatment possessed a potential for commercialization by having low energy requirements when compared to the other modeled pretreatments. With high safety measures that reduce the possibility of anhydrous ammonia leaking to the air, LMAA pretreatment resulted in GWP of 5.72 kg CO2 eq./L butanol, ecotoxicity potential of 2.84 × 10−6 CTU eco/L butanol, and eutrophication potential of 0.011 kg N eq./L butanol. The lowest energy requirement in biobutanol production (19.43 MJ/L), as well as better life-cycle energy metrics performances (NEV of 24.69 MJ/L and NER of 2.27) and environmental impacts potentials (GWP of 3.92 kg N eq./L butanol and ecotoxicity potential of 2.14 × 10−4 CTU eco/L butanol), were recorded when the LMAA pretreatment was combined with the membrane pervaporation process in the product separation stage.

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Environmental, Ecological, and Economic Benefits of Biofuel Production Using a Constructed Wetland: A Case Study in China

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph16050827 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 827

Author(s):

Dong Liu ◽

Changxin Zou ◽

Mengjia Xu

Keyword(s):

Wastewater Treatment ◽

Life Cycle ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Constructed Wetland ◽

Biomass Yield ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽

Treatment Plant ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Biofuel Production ◽

Net Energy

Here we show a constructed wetland (CW), a viable alternative wastewater treatment system, be used to produce biofuels from biomass by using nitrogen contained in domestic wastewater. We summarize the potential biomass yield evaluated as cellulosic ethanol bioenergy production, and combine the life cycle analysis with a mass balance approach to estimate the energetic, environmental, and economic performance of a CW biofuel system. The results showed that the annual aboveground biomass yield of a CW in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, China, averaged 37,813 kg ha−1 year−1 as the by-product of treating waste N, which is about one order of magnitude larger than traditional biofuel production systems. The biomass yield in the Zhoushan CW system had life cycle environment benefits of 8.8 Mg (1 Mg = 106 g) CO2 equivalent ha−1 year−1 of greenhouse gas emission reduction. The CW in Zhoushan had a net energy gain of 249.9 GJ (1 GJ = 109 J) ha−1 year−1 while the wastewater treatment plant (WTP) consumes 7442.5 GJ ha−1 year−1. Moreover, the CW reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 2714 times less than that of the WTP. The CW also provided various ecosystem services, such as regional climate regulation and habitat conservation. We suggest that the potential use of a CW as biofuel production and carbon sequestration via nitrogen-negative input can be explored more widely in the future.

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