Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Energy and environmental analysis of a rapeseed biorefinery conversion process

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The need for biofuels is steadily increasing as a result of political strategies and the need for energy security. Biorefineries have the potential to improve the sustainability of biofuels through further recovery of valuable bioproducts and bioenergy. A life cycle assessment (LCA)-based environmental assessment of a Danish biorefinery system was carried out to thoroughly analyze and optimize the concept and address future research. The LCA study was based on case-specific mass and energy balances and inventory data, and was conducted using consequential LCA approach to take into account market mechanisms determining the fate of products, lost opportunities and marginal productions. The results show that introduction of enzymatic transesterification and improved oil extraction procedure result in environmental benefits compared to a traditional process. Utilization of rapeseed straw seems to have positive effects on the greenhouse gases (GHG) footprint of the biorefinery system, with improvements in the range of 9 % to 29 %, depending on the considered alternative. The mass and energy balances showed the potential for improvement of straw treatment processes (hydrothermal pre-treatment and dark fermentation) as well as minor issues related to enzymes utilization in different bio-processes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. EC. Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC. Official Journal of the European Union, 140:16–45, June 2009. OJ:L:2009:140:0016:0062:EN:PDF

    Google Scholar 

  2. Al-Riffai P, Dimaranan B, Laborde D (2011) Global trade and environmental impact study of the EU biofuels mandate. International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI), Washington, USA, 2010. Last accessed March 2011 at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/145954.htm

  3. Bendz K (2006) EU-25 Oilseeds and Products Annual 2006. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Brussels, 2006. Last accessed March 2011 at: www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/200606/146197961.pdf

  4. Thyø KA, Wenzel H (2007) Life cycle assessment of biogas from maize silage and from manure. Institute for Product Development, Technical University of Denmark, 2007. Last accessed March 2011 at: http://www.xergi.com/images/stories/pdf/life_cycle_assessment_report.pdf

  5. Cherubini F, Jungmeier G (2010) LCA of a biorefinery concept producing bioethanol, bioenergy, and chemicals from switchgrass. Int J Life Cycle Assess 15:53–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Halleux H, Lassaux S, Renzoni R, Germain A (2008) Comparative life cycle assessment of two biofuels. Ethanol from sugar beet and rapeseed methyl ester. Int J LCA 13:184–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Uihlein A, Schebek L (2009) Environmental impacts of a lignocellulose feedstock biorefinery system: an assessment. Biomass Bioenergy 33:793–802

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cherubini F, Ulgiati S (2010) Crop residues as raw materials for biorefinery systems—a LCA case study. Applied Energy 87:47–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Thamsiriroj T, Murphy JD (2010) Can rape seed biodiesel meet the European Union Sustainability Criteria for biofuels? Energy Fuel 24:1720–1730

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hedegaard K, Thyø KA, Wenzel H (2008) Life cycle assessment of an advanced bioethanol technology in the perspective of constrained biomass availability. Env Sci Technol 42:7992–7999

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Reinhard J, Zah R (2009) Global environmental consequences of increased biodiesel consumption in Switzerland: consequential life cycle assessment. J Clean Prod 17:S46–S56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Huo H, Wang M, Bloyd C, Putsche V (2009) Life-cycle assessment of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of soybean-derived biodiesel and renewable fuels. Env Sc Tech 43:750–756

    Google Scholar 

  13. Harding KG, Dennis JS, von Blottnitz H, Harrison STL (2006) A life-cycle comparison between inorganic and biological catalysis for the production of biodiesel. J Clean Prod 16:1368–1378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Fjerbaek L, Christensen KV, Norddahl B (2009) A review of the current state of biodiesel production using enzymatic transesterification. Biotechnol Bioeng 102:1298–1315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Cencic O, Rechberger H (2008) Material Flow Anaylsis with Software STAN. J Env Eng Manag 18:3–7

    Google Scholar 

  16. Pré (2008) SimaPro 7.1 PRé Consultants B.V. Plotterweg 12, 3821 AD Amersfoort • The Netherlands, www.pre.nl

  17. Hauschild M, Potting J (2005). Spatial differentiation in life cycle impact assessment—the EDIP2003 methodology. Environmental news No. 80 (2005) Danish Ministry of the Environment. Copenhagen, Denmark

    Google Scholar 

  18. Li L, Du W, Liu D, Wang L, Li Z (2006) Lipase-catalyzed transesterification of rapeseed oils for biodiesel production with a novel organic solvent as the reaction medium. J Mol Catal B Enzym 43:58–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Dong M, Walker TH (2008) Characterization of high-pressure carbon dioxide explosion to enhance oil extraction from canola. J Supercr Fluids 44:193–200

    Google Scholar 

  20. Bellostas N, Sørensen AD, Sørensen JC, Sørensen H (2007) Genetic variation and metabolism of glucosinolates in cruciferous oilseed crops. In: Surinder G (ed) Rapeseed breeding: advances in botanical research, 45th edn. Academic Press/Elsevier, Dan Diego

    Google Scholar 

  21. Cornblatt BS, Ye L, Dinkova-Kostova AT, Erb M, Fahey JW, Singh NK, Chen MA, Stierer T, Garrett-Mayer E, Argani P, Davidson NE, Talalay P, Kensler TW, Visvanathan K (2007) Preclinical and clinical evaluation of sulforaphane for chemoprevention in the breast. Carcinogenesis 28:1485–1490

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Thomsen MH, Thygesen A, Thomsen AB (2008) Hydrothermal treatment of wheat straw at pilot plant scale using a three-step reactor system aiming at high hemicellulose recovery, high cellulose digestibility and low lignin hydrolysis. Biores Technol 99:4221–4228

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Petersen MØ, Larsen J, Thomsen MH (2009) Optimization of hydrothermal pretreatment of wheat straw for production of bioethanol at low water consumption without addition of chemicals. Biomass Bioenergy 33:834–840

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Díaz MJ, Cara C, Ruiz E, Romero I, Moya M, Castro E (2010) Hydrothermal pre-treatment of rapeseed straw. Bioresour Technol 101:2428–2435

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Kongjan P, Min B, Angelidaki I (2009) Biohydrogen production from xylose at extreme thermophilic temperatures (70 °C) by mixed culture fermentation. Water Res 43:1414–1424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Kaparaju P, Serrano M, Thomsen AB, Kongjan P, Angelidaki I (2009) Bioethanol, biohydrogen and biogas production from wheat straw in a biorefinery concept. Biores Technol 100:2562–2568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Petersson A, Thomsen MH, Hauggaard-Nielsen H, Thomsen A-B (2007) Potential bioethanol and biogas production using lignocellulosic biomass from winter rye, oilseed rape and faba bean. Biomass Bioenergy 31:812–819

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Jensen EB, Jørgensen K, Haldrup C, Nielsen KA, Christensen B, Wegge M, Serup T, Udesen F, Høy JJ (2005) Budgetkalkuler 2006, for de enkelte produktionsgrene, Kalenderårene 2005 og 2006 (English: Budget estimates 2006, for single production lines, Calendar years 2005 and 2006). Dansk Landbrugsrådgivning, Landscentret, Aarhus, Danmark

    Google Scholar 

  29. Schmidt JH (2007) Life cycle assessment of rapeseed oil and palm oil. Part 3: life cycle inventory of rapeseed oil and palm oil. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Development and Planning Aalborg University, Denmark, 2007

  30. Jeong T-S, Um B-H, Kim J-S, Oh K-K (2010) Optimizing dilute-acid pretreatment of rapeseed straw for extraction of hemicellulose. App Biochem Biotech 161:22–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Sustoil (2010) Optimisation of primary processing. Deliverable 2.5 from WP2 in “Developing advanced Biorefinery schemes for integration into existing oil production/transesterification plants”. Last accessed May 2012 at: http://www.york.ac.uk/res/sustoil/Pages/Deliverable%202-5.pdf

  32. Jungbluth N, Chudacoff M, Dauriat A, Dinkel F, Doka G, Faist Emmenegger M, Gnansounou E, Kljun N, Spielmann M, Stettler C, Sutter J (2007) Life cycle inventories of bioenergy. Final report ecoinvent data v2.0. Volume: 17. Swiss Centre for LCI, ESU. Duebendorf and Uster, CH

  33. Emmelev (2010) Data supplied by Emmelev A/S, Denmark, March 2010

  34. Sotoft LF, Rong B-G, Christensen KV, Norddahl B (2010) Process simulation and economical evaluation of enzymatic biodiesel production plant. Biores Technol 101:5266–5274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Weber M (2008) Futtermittel aus Raps – was sagen die Inhaltsstoffe?, UFOP-Information Winterrapsaussaat 2008;6–7. Last accessed March 2011 at: http://www.ufop.de/downloads/Ufop_Information_Winter_08.pdf

  36. Scifinder database. Accessible at: http://www.cas.org/products/scifinder

  37. Nemecek T, Kägi T (2007) Life cycle inventories of Swiss and European agricultural production systems, Final report ecoinvent V2.0 No. 15a. Dübendorf and Zurich (Switzerland): Agroscope Reckenholz-Taenikon Research Station ART, Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories

  38. Malça J, Freire F (2011) Life-cycle studies of biodiesel in Europe: a review addressing the variability of results and modeling issues. Renew Sust Energy Rev 15:338–351

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Chalmers J, Archer G (2011) Development of a sustainability reporting scheme for biofuels: a UK case study. Ener Pol 39:5682–5689

    Google Scholar 

  40. IPCC (2003) Good practice guidance for land use, land-use change and forestry. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Hayama. Last accessed 20-11-2012 at: http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gpglulucf/gpglulucf.html

  41. Martínez–Blanco J, Lazcano C, Christensen TH, Muñoz P, Rieradevall J, Moller J, Antón A, Boldrin A (2012) State of the art and future challenges for quantification of compost use-on-land through an LCA perspective. Submitted to Agronomy for Sustainable Development

  42. Soon YK, Arshad MA (2002) Comparison of the decomposition and N and P mineralization of canola, pea and wheat residues. Biol Fertil Soils 36:10–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Gabrielle B, Gagnaire N (2008) Life-cycle assessment of straw use in bio-ethanol production: a case study based on biophysical modelling. Biomass Bioenergy 32:431–441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Lu X, Zhang Y, Angelidaki I (2009) Optimization of H2SO4-catalyzed hydrothermal pretreatment of rapeseed straw for bioconversion to ethanol: focusing on pretreatment at high solids content. Biores Technol 100:3048–3053

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Börjesson P, Tufvesson LM (2011) Agricultural crop-based biofuels—resource efficiency and environmental performance including direct land use changes. J Clean Prod 19:108–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Novozymes (2010) Data supplied by Novozymes A/S, Denmark, March 2010

  47. Statistics Denmark. Accessed April 2011 from: www.statistikbanken.dk.

  48. Pelkmans L, Lenares G, Bruynix J, Scheepers K (2010) Overview report of emission measurements within BIOSES. Science Policy Office, Boeretang

    Google Scholar 

  49. Edwards R, Larivé J-F, Mahieu V, Rouveirolles P (2007) Well-to-wheels analysis of future automotive fuels and powertrains in the European context. WELL-TO-TANK Report. Version 2c. Joint Research Center, Ispra, Italy

  50. Astrup T, Møller J, Fruergaard T (2009) Incineration and co-combustion of waste: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contributions. Waste Manag Res 27:789–799

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Fruergaard T, Ekvall T, Astrup T (2009) Energy use and recovery in waste management and implications for accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contributions. Waste Manag Res 27:724–737

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Fruergaard T, Christensen TH, Astrup T (2010) Energy recovery from waste incineration: assessing the importance of district heating networks. Waste Manag 30:1264–1272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Fruergaard T, Astrup T (2011) Optimal utilization of waste-to-energy in an LCA perspective. Waste Manag 31:575–582

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Schmidt JH, Weidema BP (2008) Shift in the marginal supply of vegetable oil. Int J LCA 13:235–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Norouzi A, Peyvast G, Olfati J (2008) Oilseed rape straw for cultivation of oyster mushroom. Mj Int J Sci Technol 2:502–507

    Google Scholar 

  56. Sander B (1997) Properties of Danish biofuels and the requirements for power production. Biomass Bioenergy 12:177–183

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Møller J, Boldrin A, Christensen TH (2009) Anaerobic digestion and digestate use: accounting of greenhouse gases and global warming contribution. Waste Manag Res 27:813–824

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Björklund AE (2002) Survey of approaches to improve reliability in LCA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 7:64–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. BIOBIB database. University of Technology Vienna. Last accessed March 2011 at :http://www.vt.tuwien.ac.at/biobib/biobib.html

  60. Sheng C, Azevedo JLT (2005) Estimating the higher heating value of biomass fuels from basic analysis data. Biom Bioen 28:499–507

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Raavendran K, Ganesh A (1996) Heating value of biomass and biomass pyrolysis products. Fuel 75:1715–1720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Hovelius K, Hansson P-A (1999) Energy- and exergy analysis of rape seed oil methyl ester (RME) production under Swedish conditions. Biomass Bioenergy 17:279–290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Bentsen NS, Felby C, Ipsen KH (2006) Energy balance of 2nd generation bioethanol production in Denmark. Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Danish Centre for Forest, Landscape and Planning and Elsam Engineering A/S: Copenhagen, Denmark. Last access April 2011 at: http://www.tekno.dk/pdf/projekter/p09_2gbio/ClausFelby/p09_2gbio%20Bentsen%20et%20al%20(2006).pdf

  64. Manish S, Banerjee R (2008) Comparison of biohydrogen production processes. Int J Hydr Ener 33:279–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. El-Shafey EI, Gameiro MLF, Correia PFM, de Carvalho JMR (2004) Dewatering of brewer's spent grain using a membrane filter press: a pilot plant study. Sep Sc Tech 39:3237–3261

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation under Bio REF. Project No. 2104-06-0004.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Miljoevej, DK-2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Alessio Boldrin, Alberto Balzan & Thomas Astrup

Authors
  1. Alessio Boldrin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alberto Balzan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Thomas Astrup
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alessio Boldrin.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(DOCX 2878 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Boldrin, A., Balzan, A. & Astrup, T. Energy and environmental analysis of a rapeseed biorefinery conversion process. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 3, 127–141 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-013-0071-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-013-0071-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation