Process design and environmental analysis for catalytic production of gamma-valerolactone from Kenaf

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested to report the effectiveness in an economically viable insight of generation of gamma-valerolactone (GVL) from non-food biomass resources, but the environmental performance has less been conducted. When a new biorefinery process is presented for production of GVL from non-food biomass resources, environmental performances including carbon dioxide emission will be improved compared to the conventional production approaches. This study designs the more environmentally-friendly GVL process and expands to a LCA framework for the use of non-food biomass derived GVL as a product and solvent. To examine Kenaf utilization as a non-food biomass on GVL prodcution, this study focuses on process design and life cycle assessment (LCA) to indentify the global warming potentials (GWP) and fossil resource scarcity (FRS) of GVL production. The GWP and FRS results of Kenaf-based GVL were estimated to −1.326 kg CO2 eq. and −0.513 kg oil eq. of pure GVL. The LCA has been conducted in consideration of Kenaf growth farmland and biorefinery construction site located in Jeollabuk-do in South Korea.