Computer aided estimation of sustainability of biodiesel production from palm oil.

Biofuels competitiveness in the world market is not only measured by economics variables, but also by environmental ones, because their use should contribute to reducing greenhouse gases and climate change. To demonstrate the environmental sustainability of a product is possible by means of the applications of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. In this paper LCA is applied to a biodiesel production process from African palm using lignocellulosic ethanol as a reactive in the transesterification reaction which is obtained from residues with high contents of cellulose resulting from the oil extraction stage. The LCA was evaluated along the biodiesel production chain starting with the land adaption stage, oil extraction, ethanol production from residual lignocellulosic biomass, transesterification of palm oil and ending with the distribution and use of the biofuel. The LCA was developed using SIMAPRO 7.1 software and database ECOINVENT with which the ambiental profile of the system was elaborated evaluating different impact categories such as climate change (CCI), acidification (AI), eutrophication (EI), photochemical smog formation (POI), respiratory effects (REI) and non-renewable energy (NRE), among others. With the quantification of the input and output flows in the different phases of the life cycle made possible to determine the most relevant emissions as well as the consumption energy associated in each one of the stages. According to the environmental profiles obtained, the stage of distribution and use of the B10 blend has the greatest influence in the output impact categories and the input impact category. As a result the application of LCA proposed in this work gives a powerful tool for sustainability analysis of biodiesel production.