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Investigation of environmental impacts of bioethanol production from wheat straw in Kermanshah, Iran

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Abstract

Renewable fuels have been gaining attention worldwide due to their promise of lower carbon footprint and energy security as well as their flexibility in converting a wide range of biomass resources including agricultural residues. This study investigates the potential environmental advantages that could be gained by local conversion of wheat straw, a residue of wheat grain – a major cereal crop, to bioethanol in Kermanshah, Iran. To identify and recommend strategies to address the environmental impacts hotspots of 1 MJ wheat straw-based ethanol production and consumption compared with gasoline, a cradle-to-grave (Well-to-Wheel) life cycle assessment using TRACI 2.1 method was conducted. Subsystems considered within the system boundary of this study included wheat straw production and collection, transportation of wheat straw to biorefinery, conversion of the straw to bioethanol and electricity as a byproduct, and distribution and combustion of bioethanol. Results demonstrated that straw production and collection subsystem was the main contributor to the life cycle environmental impacts of the bioethanol in all categories, mainly due to on-farm emissions and electricity consumption for irrigation. Compared with gasoline (93 g CO2 eq/MJ), ethanol production and consumption avoided 55.7 g CO2 eq/MJ. Carbon sequestration during wheat cultivation subsystem and surplus electricity credit generated at the ethanol biorefinery subsystem offset majority of the negative impacts from other parts of the life cycle. An uncertainty analysis was performed in order to evaluate the effect of inherent variation in LCA model inputs of straw production on the carbon footprint of the system. Results indicated that the mean value of GHG emissions from wheat cultivation step is 254 kg CO2 eq/tonne wheat straw, confirming minimum uncertainty exists in our base case scenario.

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If necessary, all the data on which this article has been prepared can be sent.

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We used Simapro v 9.1.0.11 with 1 year non-OECD SimaPro Faculty version i.e. Faculty Zabol 003.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for financial support by University of Zabol under Grant Number of 971853.

Funding

This research was financially supported by University of Zabol.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran

    Maryam Safaripour, Ahmad Ghanbari & Esmaeel Seyedabadi

  2. Department of Coatings and Polymeric Materials, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

    Ghasideh Pourhashem

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  1. Maryam Safaripour
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  4. Ghasideh Pourhashem
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Correspondence to Ahmad Ghanbari.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Table 6 Impact assessment results for the production of 1 MJ bioethanol.
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Safaripour, M., Ghanbari, A., Seyedabadi, E. et al. Investigation of environmental impacts of bioethanol production from wheat straw in Kermanshah, Iran. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 5931–5941 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-021-01676-7

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