Life Cycle Analysis of Biotechnological Processes based on the Composition of the Raw Material: Eucalyptus, Avocado, and Plantain Cases in a Biorefinery System

Abstract

Agricultural and forest crops are characterized by the production of a high amount of residues during their processing. The disposal of this biomass can mitigate the environmental impact through its integral use in the biorefinery context. In this work, the processing of Eucalyptus spp. chips, avocado seed and, plantain pseudostem distributed in five biorefineries scenarios were analyzed. The best three schemes were chosen based on chemical composition and their potential to obtain products as phenolic compounds considering a robust economic allocation. These three biorefinery configurations were assessed in economic and environmental terms. The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology was used to determine the environmental impacts associated. As a main economic result, all scenarios did not present economic viability for the selected processing scale, with losses higher than 3.3 M USD/y. From the environmental perspective, the significant steam demand influenced the different impact categories. However, the food waste-based biorefinery showed less environmental impact. This scheme presented positive impacts on wastewater treatment; the fertilizer concentration stage prevents the production of high amounts of liquid streams to be generated in the process.