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Life Cycle Assessment of Production of Hydrochar via Hydrothermal Carbonization of Date Palm Fronds Biomass

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Chun Yang Yin

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

© 2023 by the authors. This study presents novel life cycle assessment (LCA) findings on hydrochar production from Saudi-Arabia-based date palm fronds biomass waste using hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). The LCA procedure incorporated normalization, weighting, and improvement assessment. The system boundary encompassed water consumption and energy requirements within a lab setting representing a gate-to-gate process. The OpenLCA 1.11.0 software with the European Life Cycle Database 3.2 (ELCD 3.2) was utilized for the study and we employed the ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 and Environmental Footprint 3.0 (EF 3.0) impact assessment methods. The results indicated that fossil fuel usage represented the most significant impact category with the HTC and drying processes identified as major contributors. It was also observed that the HTC process exerted far greater detrimental impacts on the environment than the biomass grinding process. The overwhelming impact of fossil fuel resources could be mitigated by optimizing the batches of biomass or hydrochar samples in each operation, which could alleviate fossil fuel consumption by up to 94%. The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions to mitigate the environmental burden and contribute to sustainable hydrochar production.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Yin C-Y, El-Harbawi M, Jiang Z-T

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Materials

Year: 2023

Volume: 16

Issue: 20

Online publication date: 11/10/2023

Acceptance date: 09/10/2023

Date deposited: 09/11/2023

ISSN (electronic): 1996-1944

Publisher: MDPI

URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16206653

DOI: 10.3390/ma16206653

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