Life cycle assessment of bagasse fiber reinforced biocompositesShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: Science of the Total Environment, ISSN 0048-9697, E-ISSN 1879-1026, Vol. 720, article id 137586Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This study aims to evaluate the life cycle environmental implications of producing fiber-reinforced biocomposite pellets, compared with sugarcane- and petroleum-based polyethylene (PE) pellets. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is used to evaluate the production of four types of pellets. LCA allows the evaluation of the benefits of improving the production of biobased materials by replacing part of the sugarcane bioPE with bagasse fibers. The functional unit selected was the production of 1 kg of plastic pellets. Primary data were collected from laboratory tests designed to obtain pulp fibers from bagasse and mix them with sugarcane bioPE. Two processes were studied to obtain fibers from bagasse: soda fractionation and hot water-soda fractionation. The results from the LCA show environmental improvements when reducing the amount of bioPE by replacing it with bagasse fibers in the categories of global warming, ozone formation, terrestrial acidification and fossil resource scarcity, when comparing to 100% sugarcane bioPE, and a reduction in global warming and fossil resource scarcity when compared to fossil-based PE. In contrast, results also indicate that there could be higher impacts in terms of ozone formation, freshwater eutrophication, and terrestrial acidification. Even though biocomposites result as a preferred option to bioPE, several challenges need to be overcome before a final recommendation is placed. The sensitivity analysis showed the importance of the energy source on the impacts of the processing of fibers. Thus, using clean energy to produce biobased materials may reduce the impacts related to the production stage. These results are intended to increase the attention of the revalorization of these residues and their application to generate more advanced materials. Further outlook should also consider a deeper evaluation of the impacts during the production of a plastic object and possible effects of the biobased materials during final disposal.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V. , 2020. Vol. 720, article id 137586
Keywords [en]
Biobased materials, Biocomposites, Biopolymers, GHG emissions, Life cycle assessment, Acidification, Bagasse, Composite materials, Eutrophication, Fibers, Global warming, Greenhouse gases, Natural resources, Ozone, Pelletizing, Reinforcement, Sensitivity analysis, Water, Advanced materials, Bio-based materials, Bio-composites, Environmental implications, Environmental improvements, Fossil resources, GHG emission, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life cycle, composite, greenhouse gas, life cycle analysis, polymer, reinforced concrete
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-44443DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137586Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85081024481OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-44443DiVA, id: diva2:1415134
Note
Funding details: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, TecnologÃa e Innovación Tecnológica, CONCYTEC, ELAC2015/T03-0715; Funding details: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, TecnologÃa e Innovación Tecnológica, CONCYTEC; Funding text 1: The authors would like to thank CONCYTEC (Peruvian National Council for Science, Technology and Technological Innovation) for funding this project. This work is supported by the ERANet-LAC project: Valorization of residual biomass for advanced 3D materials (ValBio-3D) (Grant ELAC2015/T03-0715 ).
2020-03-172020-03-172023-05-17Bibliographically approved