Abstract
Continuous depletion of fossil fuels with increasing energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions have paved the way to find alternative eco-friendly energy solutions. Among these solutions, the biorefinery framework encompassing different conversion technologies is a way forward to transform massive available quantities of waste/biomass into value-added bioproducts of fuels, energy, and chemicals. Although waste biorefineries could be sustainable mean to valorize waste and to generate a wide spectrum of value-added bioproducts as compared to oil refineries, it is critical to scrutinize their economic, environmental, and social burdens using advanced sustainability assessment tools like life-cycle assessment (LCA). LCA as a comprehensive tool to investigate a product/service through its complete life-cycle can be used to analyze and compare possible alternative scenarios of waste biorefineries. Accordingly, this chapter aims to determine the key issues of conducting LCA studies for waste biorefineries. Furthermore, a summary of studies focusing on the LCA of waste biorefineries is presented, and their findings are comprehensively discussed in detail with an ambition to make waste biorefineries a promising pillar of circular economies.
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