Chapter 5 - Life Cycle Assessment of Vetiver-Based Biorefinery With Production of Bioethanol and Furfural

Abstract

Lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks are considered to be one of the major alternatives to fossil- and food-based transport fuel and chemicals, for reasons such as fuel/food security, depleting fossil reserves, climate change, mitigating of pollution in agriculture and rural socioeconomic development. In highly populated and agriculture-based countries such as India, the conventional lignocellulosic feedstock such as rice straw and wheat straw are a major source of animal feed and hence nonconventional feedstock that could be cultivated in wasteland has to be explored to fulfill the lignocellulosic feedstock supply in the coming years. In this context, this study deals with life cycle assessment (LCA) of vetiver, a nonconventional lignocellulosic feedstock for bioethanol and biochemical production in India. A prospective LCA was performed to compare the environmental impacts of a vetiver-based biorefinery system with a conventional system. The results reveal that the carbon dioxide and fossil oil consumption could be reduced by 145% and 77% respectively in the case of bioethanol production, and 30% and 12% respectively in the case of bioethanol and furfural production compared to its reference system. The sensitive analysis indicates that using vetiver biomass as a source of energy in a biorefinery plant further reduces the carbon dioxide emission and fossil oil consumption significantly by 100% and 60% compared to the coal used for the process energy requirement in a vetiver biorefinery.