Publication

Techno-economic and environmental impact assessment of an olive tree pruning waste multiproduct biorefinery

Elia Mercedes Ruiz Pachon
2022
Journal paper
Abstract

This work focuses on the economic performance and environmental assessment of two biorefinery schemes using 100 t/day of olive tree pruning waste as feedstock. The first scheme is based on a multiproduct biorefinery producing 6363.64 m3/yr of ethanol, 999.31 t/yr of xylitol, and 1221.51 t/yr of antioxidant, obtaining a positive investment balance with a net present value (NPV) of 11.56 Meuro in a 20-year period with an initial investment of 39.5 Meuro (antioxidants account for 60.2% of revenues). In addition, it shows lower environmental impacts: 0.435 kg CO2 eq in global warning, 0.007 kg 1,4-DCB in human carcinogenic toxicity, 0.148 kg oileq in fossil resource scarcity for 1 kg OTP consumed, in comparison to the business-as-usual production of ethanol, xylitol and antioxidants (7.96 kg CO2 eq, 0.444 kg 1,4-DCB and 2.228 kg oileq). The second scheme considered is the standalone production of antioxidants, showing a similar economic performance (NPV = 11.9 Meuro) to the previous multiproduct biorefinery with lower initial investment requirements (24.9 Meuro). This process configuration also reduces some important environmental impacts such as global warming impact (0.55 kg CO2 eq) and freshwater consumption (0.067 m3), with respect to the multiproduct scheme. Thus, it has been demonstrated that antioxidants production from OTP is a promising alternative in terms of both process economics and environmental performance. (c) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related concepts (38)
Investment banking
Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities.
Investment fund
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to: hire professional investment managers, who may offer better returns and more adequate risk management; benefit from economies of scale, i.e., lower transaction costs; increase the asset diversification to reduce some unsystematic risk.
Global warming potential
Global warming potential (GWP) is a measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas added to the atmosphere would absorb over a given time frame, as a multiple of the radiation that would be absorbed by the same mass of added carbon dioxide (). GWP is 1 for . For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs infrared thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame being considered. The carbon dioxide equivalent (e or eq or -e) is calculated from GWP.
Show more
Related publications (34)

Integrated production of chemicals and fuels in the pulp industry: techno-economic and environmental analysis of black liquor gasification-based processes

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos

The pulp and paper sector is classified as an energy intensive activity and several efforts are being made to mitigate its atmospheric emissions, improve the recovery of residual heat and capitalize on its byproducts. The black liquor (BL) is a byproduct o ...
2022

Large-scale regionalised LCA shows that plant-based fat spreads have a lower climate, land occupation and water scarcity impact than dairy butter

Xun Liao

Purpose In light of the sustainable diet debate, we conducted a large-scale regionalised LCA to answer the following questions: (i) does the climate advantage hypothesis of plant-based fat spreads and creams over dairy butter and cream hold regardless of t ...
2020

Methodology for the Life Cycle Assessment of Clay Masonry from Energy and Water Consumption

Considering the clay masonry production, energy and water’s resources consumption has a high relevance, mainly at raw extraction materials, and transformation phases, highlighting the environmental impacts ensued by these types of activities. Life Cycle As ...
Paul Scherrer Institute, World Resources Forum2019
Show more
Related MOOCs (6)
Analyse du cycle de vie environmental
MOOC introduction à la pensée du cycle de vie et aux concepts théoriques pour réaliser et critiquer une analyse du cycle de vie.
Soil and real estate economy
Qu'est-ce qui détermine les prix fonciers et les prix immobiliers en général? Comprenez les liens de ces prix avec les taux d'intérêt, les rentes foncières et les loyers. Un cours d'économie pour les
Soil and real estate economy
Qu'est-ce qui détermine les prix fonciers et les prix immobiliers en général? Comprenez les liens de ces prix avec les taux d'intérêt, les rentes foncières et les loyers. Un cours d'économie pour les
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.