Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) utilization of oil palm empty fruit bunches as bioenergy

Abstract

The vast area of oil palm plantations makes Indonesia the largest producer of palm oil in the world. Thus, it has the potential to be a source of biomass waste, especially empty fruit bunches. Biomass waste is the fourth largest energy source after coal, petroleum and natural gases so it can contribute more to the supply of renewable and sustainable energy sources. The utilization of this waste can be done by conversion through a thermochemical process, namely by pyrolysis. The conversion process produces emissions that have an impact on the environment. Emissions generated in this process are in the form of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutant gases. This study identifies the impact of these emissions by using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The LCA method was used in this study to assess the environmental impact associated with the use of empty fruit bunches with the help of Simapro 8.5 software. The stages of LCA are goals and scope, life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and data interpretation. By using SimaPro 8.5, the value of the magnitude of each environmental impact will be known. The results showed that the utilization of empty fruit bunches by fast pyrolysis has the potential environmental impacts of 0.02149 kg SO2eq as the causes of acidification; 0.00399 kg PO4eq causes of Eutrophication; 586 kg CO2eq causes of global warming (GWP100a), and 595 kg C2H4eq causes photochemical oxidation.