Consumptive Water Use in the Production of Ethanol and Petroleum Gasoline — 2018 Update

Wu, May; Hui, Xu

doi:10.2172/1490723

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The WC for gasoline production for this study was similar to the findings of Sun et al [114]. Besides, Wu et al [115] showed that WC for ethanol production from corn was 1.6 to 57 times higher than gasoline depending on irrigation requirements. The water consumption of E65 of this study was 2.82 times higher than gasoline because the percentage of C 2 H 5 OH in the blend was low which means that a small amount of water was required for irrigation for growing C 2 H 5 OH feedstock.…”

Section: Water Consumption (Wc)supporting

confidence: 88%

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

et al. 2019

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Alternative fuels for the transport sector are being emphasized due to energy security and environmental issues. Possible alternative fuel options need to be assessed to realize their potential to alleviate environmental burdens before policy formulations. Western Australia (WA) is dominated by private cars, accounting for around 72% vehicles with 87% of those using imported gasoline, and resulting in approximately 14% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. There is an urgent need for WA to consider alternative transport fuels not only to reduce the environmental burden but also to avoid future energy security consequences. This study assesses the environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA) of transport fuel options suitable for WA. The study revealed that ethanol (E65), electric (EV) and plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) options can decrease global warming potential (GWP) by 40%, 29% and 14%, respectively, when compared to gasoline. The EV and PHEV also performed better than gasoline in the fossil fuel depletion (FFD) and water consumption (WC) impact categories. Gasoline, however, demonstrated better environmental performance in all the impact categories compared to hydrogen and that was mainly due to the high electricity requirement during the production of hydrogen. The use of platinum in hydrogen fuel cells and carbon fibre in the hydrogen tank for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) and Li-ion battery for EVs are the most important sources of environmental impacts. The findings of the study would aid the energy planners and decision makers in carrying out a comparative environmental assessment of the locally-sourced alternative fuels for WA.

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Section: Water Consumption (Wc)supporting

confidence: 88%

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

et al. 2019

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“…This means that seawater could represent a potential reaction medium because its main components have shown individually an enhancement in lignocellulose breakdown. It has been estimated that the production of bioethanol in cellulosic biorefineries consumes 1.9-5.8 gallons of freshwater per gallon of bioethanol produced [57,58]. Alternatively, concentrated seawater, representing 97% of the Earth's total water, could represent a cost-effective solution in order to decrease the large volume of used freshwater [59].…”

Section: Challenges Of Cellulases Cocktailsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineering Robust Cellulases for Tailored Lignocellulosic Degradation Cocktails

Contreras

Pramanik

Рожкова

et al. 2020

IJMS

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Lignocellulosic biomass is a most promising feedstock in the production of second-generation biofuels. Efficient degradation of lignocellulosic biomass requires a synergistic action of several cellulases and hemicellulases. Cellulases depolymerize cellulose, the main polymer of the lignocellulosic biomass, to its building blocks. The production of cellulase cocktails has been widely explored, however, there are still some main challenges that enzymes need to overcome in order to develop a sustainable production of bioethanol. The main challenges include low activity, product inhibition, and the need to perform fine-tuning of a cellulase cocktail for each type of biomass. Protein engineering and directed evolution are powerful technologies to improve enzyme properties such as increased activity, decreased product inhibition, increased thermal stability, improved performance in non-conventional media, and pH stability, which will lead to a production of more efficient cocktails. In this review, we focus on recent advances in cellulase cocktail production, its current challenges, protein engineering as an efficient strategy to engineer cellulases, and our view on future prospects in the generation of tailored cellulases for biofuel production.

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“…Four biological challenges limiting biohydrogen production in algae have been identified: (a) the O 2 sensitivity of hydrogenases, (b) competition for photosynthetic reductant at the level of ferredoxin, (c) regulatory issues associated with the over production of ATP, and (d) inefficiencies in the utilization of solar light energy (Seibert et al, 2008). These challenges could be addressed by (a) engineering hydrogenases with improved tolerance to O 2 (Cohen et al, 2005), (b) identifying metabolic pathways that compete with hydrogenases for photosynthetic reductant, and engineering their down-regulation during H 2 production (Mathews and Wang, 2009), (c) engineering the photosynthetic membrane for decreased efficiency of photosynthetic-electron-transport-coupled ATP production (ATP is not required for H 2 production), and (d) engineering the photosynthetic antenna pigment content for increased efficiency of solar light utilization (Polle et al, 2003).…”

Section: Oxidative Stress and Storage Lipidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power of Plankton: Effects of Algal Biodiversity on Biocrude Production and Stability

Narwani

Lashaway

Hietala

et al. 2016

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Algae-derived biocrude oil is a possible renewable energy alternative to fossil fuel based crude oil. Outdoor cultivation in raceway ponds is estimated to provide a better return on energy invested than closed photobioreactor systems. However, in these open systems, algal crops are subjected to environmental variation in temperature and irradiance, as well as biotic invasions which can cause costly crop instabilities. In this paper, we used an experimental approach to investigate the ability of species richness to maximize and stabilize biocrude production in the face of weekly temperature fluctuations between 17 and 27 °C, relative to a constant-temperature control. We hypothesized that species richness would lead to higher mean biocrude production and greater stability of biocrude production over time in the variable temperature environment. Counter to our hypothesis, species richness tended to cause a decline in mean biocrude production, regardless of environmental temperature variation. However, biodiversity did have stabilizing effects on biocrude production over time in the variable temperature environment and not in the constant temperature environment. Altogether, our results suggest that when the most productive and stable monoculture is unknown, inoculating raceway ponds with a diverse mixture of algae will tend to ensure stable harvests over time.

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Consumptive Water Use in the Production of Ethanol and Petroleum Gasoline — 2018 Update

Cited by 23 publications

References 25 publications

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

Engineering Robust Cellulases for Tailored Lignocellulosic Degradation Cocktails

Power of Plankton: Effects of Algal Biodiversity on Biocrude Production and Stability

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