12This work focuses in the application of the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) Accordingly, it can be concluded that it is feasible to manage moist agro-industrial 31 wastes via HTC, which is ostensibly more efficient than TF in terms of energy 32 consumption.

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press. Results demonstrated that torrefaction allows transforming TPOMW into a coal-28 like material, which would imply a profitable way to manage these wastes.

Please cite this article as: Benavente V, Fullana A, Berge ND, Life cycle analysis of hydrothermal carbonization of olive mill waste: Comparison with current management approaches, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), ABSTRACT 16Significant efforts have been direct towards developing environmentally sustainable and 17 economically beneficial treatment of olive mill wastes. Recently, hydrothermal carbonization 18 (HTC) has been shown to be a potentially beneficial approach for the treatment of olive mill 19 wastes. When considering the use of HTC to treat these wastes, however, it is critical that its 20 environmental implications be evaluated and subsequently compared to other commonly used 21 treatment approaches. In this study, the environmental impacts associated with using HTC to 22 treat olive mill wastes were evaluated and compared to aerobic composting, anaerobic digestion, 23 and incineration using life cycle assessment. Results indicate that HTC coupled with subsequent 24 energy recovery from the combustion of the generated hydrochar results in net environmental 25 benefits and that the energy offsets derived from electricity production from hydrochar 26 combustion are critical to achieving these savings. In addition, results indicate that HTC process 27 water discharge significantly influences system environmental impacts, indicating that research 28 investigating treatment alternatives is needed. Changes in carbonization temperature and 29 hydrochar moisture content also influence system environmental impact, suggesting that both are 30 important when considering possible industrial applications. In comparison with current 31 management approaches, alternatives using HTC are more environmental advantageous than 32 composting and anaerobic digestion. However, the use of HTC is not as environmentally 33 advantageous as incineration with energy recovery because 45-35% of the energy contained in 34 the olive mill waste is lost during HTC. However, if the electricity recovery efficiency from 35 incineration increases to greater than 30%, the environmental impacts associated with HTC and 36 subsequent energy generation are equal to or better than direct TPOWM incineration with energy 37 recovery. It is recommended that future research efforts focus on the evaluation of appropriate 38 M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 3 and environmentally beneficial HTC process water treatment approaches and methods to 39 improve the energetic retention efficiencies of the hydrochar. 40 41

In this study, a novel kind of hybrid pigment based on nanoclays and dyes was synthesized and characterized. These nanoclay-based pigments (NCPs) were prepared at the laboratory with sodium montmorillonite nanoclay (NC) and methylene blue (MB). The cation-exchange capacity of NC exchanged with MB was varied to obtain a wide color gamut. The synthesized nanopigments were thoroughly characterized. The NCPs were melt-mixed with linear low-density polyethylene (PE) with an internal mixer. Furthermore, samples with conventional colorants were prepared in the same way. Then, the properties (mechanical, thermal, and colorimetric) of the mixtures were assessed. The PE-NCP samples developed better color properties than those containing conventional colorants and used as references, and their other properties were maintained or improved, even at lower contents of dye compared to that with the conventional colorants.