The macroalga Ochtodes secundiramea is a well-known producer of essential terpene oils with promising biological activities and similar applications to those of microalgal biocompounds in the pharmaceutical, food or cosmetics sectors. This study assesses the environmental impacts associated with the production of five essential terpene oils (myrcene, 10Z-bromomyrcene, 10E-bromo-3-chloromyrcene, apakaochtodene B and acyclic C10H14Br2) by O. secundiramea cultivated in a closed airlift photobioreactor with artificial illumination. The results of the life cycle assessment (LCA) allowed analyzing the effect of implementing a semi-continuous operation on several stages of the life cycle of the products, which may lead to impact reductions from 1% up to 25%. Regarding the most problematic aspects of the process, the cultivation in the photobioreactor (S4) was identified as the main stage responsible for the environmental burdens, with contributions ranging between 60% and 80% of the total impacts for a semi-continuous production maintained during one year of operation. The electricity supply is the key activity affecting eight of the ten assessed categories and involves between 50% and 60% of the impact of the process. S4 is the main cause of the high energy requirements, with 86% of the total electricity consumption. Additionally, several scenarios aiming at improving the environmental profile of the system were evaluated. The application of LCA finally led to the proposal of two optimized scenarios with improvements between 8% and 40% with respect to the baseline case study.
Keywords: Environmentally optimized scenarios; Essential terpene oils; Life cycle assessment; Macroalgae; Ochtodes secundiramea; Photobioreactor.
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