Renewable carbon opportunities in the production of succinic acid applying attributional and consequential modelling

Abstract

Succinic acid (SA) is a top biobased chemical with numerous opportunities in the field of circular economy for climate neutrality. The objective of this work is to environmentally analyze the bio-production of SA from residual sugar-based streams from the pulp and paper industry (SSL). In this study we have complemented Attributional life cycle assessment (A-LCA) with Consequential life cycle assessment (C-LCA) analyzing the effect of mass versus economic allocation in the first method, and the potential of net reductions of carbon emissions in the chemical industry in the latter. The results present an analysis of the environmental effects of producing SA with two operation modes: fed-batch and continuous fermentation as well as the influence of assuming different geographical locations of the bio-SA production plant through the assessment of the effect of the electricity mix. On the other hand, utilizing the facultative anaerobic and capnophilic bacterium Basfia succiniciproducens in the fermentation and thus being CO2 an input, brings up the opportunity of assessing the carbon capture and utilization potential of the bio-SA value chain. An assessment of the upstream section and origin of CO2 was performed by studying the effect of capturing CO2 from industrial static point sources (cement industry and bioethanol production from fermentation). The carbon footprint attributional results suggest that SA from SSL provides a reasonable substitution for the SA fossil alternative although not reaching the same results when comparing against first generation SA produced from sorghum, which is 62% better. From the consequential perspective, substituting the current market of SA (fossil and 1st generation SA) by SA from SSL will provide improvements of up to 1465% by 2060.