Process design and life cycle assessment of furfural and glucose co-production derived from palm oil empty fruit bunches

Zi Wei Ng; Hui Xin Gan; Aditya Putranto; M Akbar Rhamdhani; Sharif H Zein; Oluwafemi Ayodele George; Jannata Giwangkara; Ivan Butar

doi:10.1007/s10668-022-02633-8

Process design and life cycle assessment of furfural and glucose co-production derived from palm oil empty fruit bunches

Environ Dev Sustain. 2022 Oct 7:1-22. doi: 10.1007/s10668-022-02633-8. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Zi Wei Ng¹, Hui Xin Gan¹, Aditya Putranto¹, M Akbar Rhamdhani², Sharif H Zein³, Oluwafemi Ayodele George⁴, Jannata Giwangkara⁵, Ivan Butar⁶

Affiliations

¹ Discipline of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering and Product Design Engineering, School of Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 Australia.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Hull, Kingston Upon Hull, HU6 7RX UK.
⁴ Department of Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria.
⁵ Climateworks Centre, Level 27, 35 Collins St, Melbourne, VIC 3000 Australia.
⁶ Monash University, BSD, Serpong, Banten Indonesia.

Abstract

In light of environmental issues, lignocellulosic empty fruit bunch (EFB) biomass is promoted as a carbon-neutral, environmentally friendly, and renewable alternative feedstock. A comprehensive environmental assessment of EFB biorefineries is critical for determining their sustainability in parallel with the bioeconomy policy. Nonetheless, no life cycle assessment (LCA) has been performed on co-producing food and biochemicals (furfural and glucose) derived from EFB biomass. This research is the first to evaluate the environmental performance of the furfural and glucose co-production processes from EFB biomass. Environmental analysis is conducted using a prospective gate-to-gate LCA for four impact categories, including global warming potential (GWP), acidification (ADP), eutrophication (EP), and human toxicity (HT). Aspen Plus is used to simulate the co-production process of furfural and glucose as well as generate mass and energy balances for LCA inventory data usage. The findings suggest that the environmental footprint in respect of GWP, ADP, EP, and HT is 4846.85 kg CO₂ equivalent per ton EFB, 7.24 kg SO₂ equivalent per ton EFB, 1.52 kg PO₄ equivalent per ton EFB, and 2.62E-05 kg 1,4-DB equivalent per ton EFB, respectively. The normalized overall impact scores for GWP, ADP, EP, and HT are 1.16E-10, 2.28E-11, 6.12E-10, and 2.18E-17 years/ton of EFB, respectively. In summary, the proposed integrated plant is not only economically profitable but also environmentally sustainable. In the attempt to enhance the Malaysian economic sector based on the EFB, this study has the potential to serve as an indicator of the environmental sustainability of the palm oil industry.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10668-022-02633-8.

Keywords: Empty fruit bunches; Environment; Furfural; Glucose; Life cycle assessment; Process design.

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