RT Journal Article
T1 Renewable carbon opportunities in the production of succinic acid applying attributional and consequential modelling
A1 Bello Ould Amer, Sara
A1 Ladakis, Dimitris
A1 González García, Sara
A1 Feijoo Costa, Gumersindo
A1 Koutinas, Apostolis A.
A1 Moreira Vilar, María Teresa
K1 Consequential LCA
K1 Biobased succinic acid
K1 Sulfite spent liquor
K1 Renewable carbon
K1 Carbon capture and utilization
K1 Climate neutrality
AB 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.
PB Elsevier
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/47048
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/47048
LA eng
NO Chemical Engineering Journal Volume 428, 15 January 2022, 132011
NO This research has been supported by the project Enhancing diversity in Mediterranean cereal farming systems (CerealMed) project funded by PRIMA Programme and FEDER/Ministry of Science and Innovation – Spanish National Research Agency (PCI2020-111978) and iFermenter project under the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation Programme (Grant Agreement 790507). SB, SGG, GF and MTM belong to a Galician Competitive Research Group (GRC), co-funded by FEDER (UE).
DS Minerva
RD 20 may 2026