Yin Chun-Yang, El-Harbawi Mohanad, Jiang Zhong-Tao
Newcastle University in Singapore, 537 Clementi Road #06-01, SIT Building @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore 599493, Singapore.
Chemical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
Materials (Basel). 2023 Oct 11;16(20):6653. doi: 10.3390/ma16206653.
This study presents novel life cycle assessment (LCA) findings on hydrochar production from Saudi-Arabia-based date palm fronds biomass waste using hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). The LCA procedure incorporated normalization, weighting, and improvement assessment. The system boundary encompassed water consumption and energy requirements within a lab setting representing a gate-to-gate process. The OpenLCA 1.11.0 software with the European Life Cycle Database 3.2 (ELCD 3.2) was utilized for the study and we employed the ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 and Environmental Footprint 3.0 (EF 3.0) impact assessment methods. The results indicated that fossil fuel usage represented the most significant impact category with the HTC and drying processes identified as major contributors. It was also observed that the HTC process exerted far greater detrimental impacts on the environment than the biomass grinding process. The overwhelming impact of fossil fuel resources could be mitigated by optimizing the batches of biomass or hydrochar samples in each operation, which could alleviate fossil fuel consumption by up to 94%. The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to mitigate the environmental burden and contribute to sustainable hydrochar production.
本研究展示了关于使用水热碳化（HTC）从沙特阿拉伯枣椰树叶片生物质废料生产水炭的全新生命周期评估（LCA）结果。LCA程序包含归一化、加权和改进评估。系统边界涵盖了实验室环境中的水消耗和能源需求，代表从原料到产品的全过程。本研究使用了配备欧洲生命周期数据库3.2（ELCD 3.2）的OpenLCA 1.11.0软件，并采用了ReCiPe中点（H）2016和环境足迹3.0（EF 3.0）影响评估方法。结果表明，化石燃料的使用是最主要的影响类别，HTC和干燥过程被确定为主要贡献因素。还观察到，HTC过程对环境造成的不利影响远大于生物质研磨过程。通过优化每次操作中的生物质或水炭样品批次，可以减轻化石燃料资源的巨大影响，这最多可减少94%的化石燃料消耗。研究结果强调了采取有针对性的干预措施以减轻环境负担并促进可持续水炭生产的必要性。
