Insights from combining techno-economic and life cycle assessment – a case study of polyphenol extraction from red wine pomace

Giovanna Croxatto Vega,Juliën Voogt,Morten Birkved,Anna Ekman Nilsson,Stig Irving Olsen,Joshua Sohn

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105318

Abstract

To determine the environmental and economic performance of emerging processes for the valorization of red wine pomace, a techno-economic assessment (TEA) and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are combined at an early design stage. A case study of two polyphenol extraction methods at laboratory scale, solvent extraction (SE) and pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), were first analyzed via a carbon footprint (CFP). Subsequently, the laboratory scale design was improved and translated into industrial scale and a TEA was performed on the industrial scale designs. Finally, LCA was applied again with all impact indicators and the information gathered from both the TEA and LCA was combined into concise decision support, using Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). SE performs better than PLE, due to a lower solvent to DW ratio and a less expensive processing setup in both environmental and economic terms. The CFP of at laboratory scale aided in showing potential environmental hotspots and highlighted the need to reduce solvent use. The MCDA showed a shift in decision support depending on how strongly economic or environmental benefits are valued and eases the interpretation of the 19 different indicators derived from the TEA-LCA results. Both SE and PLE with a solvent to dry weight (DW) ratio of 5 and 10, respectively, perform competitively while SE with a solvent to DW ratio of 10 outperforms PLE with a solvent to DW ratio of 25. The case study illustrated how early design calculations (CFP), and combined LCA and TEA may be combined to improve process design.

Highlights

Biomass demand for the production of bioenergy, biomaterials and biochemicals is estimated to increase by 70–110% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels (Mauser et al, 2015)
The carbon footprint (CFP) analysis clearly shows that if laboratory conditions are maintained at industrial scale, the acetone based solvent extraction method outperforms all other scenarios by a large margin, in terms of global warming potential (GWP), Fig. 3
Out of the solvent to dry weight (DW) ratio ranges of the techno-economic assessment (TEA)-life cycle assessment (LCA), solvent extraction (SE) options have potential to perform better than pressurized liquid extraction (PLE)

Summary

Introduction

Biomass demand for the production of bioenergy, biomaterials and biochemicals is estimated to increase by 70–110% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels (Mauser et al, 2015). Growing biomass for biofuels has long been debated (Haberl et al, 2010; Murphy et al, 2011; Popp et al, 2014), prompting the Renewable Energy Directive (The European Commission, 2018) at an international, pan-European, level to ensure valid quanti fication of greenhouse gas reductions claims. In this regard, integration of methods such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic assessment (TEA) are valuable input for quantitative sustainability assessments

Methods

Results

Conclusion