Room: Poster Area
Date: Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Time: 17:30 - 18:30 CEST
Session code 6BV.10
Processes for bio-based chemicals and materials 2
Process Intensification - A Beacon of Hope for Lower Environmental Impacts?
Short Introductive summary
Lignocellulose biorefineries process biomass into cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Currently, the hemicellulose fraction requires extra effort to be converted into bio-based intermediates and (end) products. The EU-funded BioSPRINT project aims to develop and validate process intensification methods to improve purification and conversion of this fraction, ultimately reducing energy resource use and greenhouse gas emissions. We have analysed the impact of process intensification on the environmental performance of hemicellulose-based intermediates and end products by means of a screening life cycle assessment (LCA). Our results show that i) it is not straight-forward that process intensification automatically leads to lower environmental impacts, and that ii) the environmental performance of the bio-based end product depends on the environmental footprint of the substituted conventional equivalent product and on the substitution ratio, among others. We conclude, among others, that it is essential to implement life cycle thinking at an early stage of process development to monitor the impact of individual process intensification measures on the overall system performance.
Presenter
Nils RETTENMAIER
IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg, Food and Biobased Systems Dpt., GERMANY
Presenter's biography
Nils Rettenmaier is a senior scientist and project leader at the IFEU-Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg. Based at the Department of Food and Biobased Systems, his main working fields are LCAs and biomass resource assessments.
Biographies and Short introductive summaries are supplied directly by presenters and are published here unedited
Co-authors:
S. Haertlé, IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg, GERMANY
H. Keller, IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg, GERMANY
G. Reinhardt, IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg, GERMANY
Session reference: 6BV.10.7