Cradle to Gate Environmental Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment of Poly(Lactic Acid)

Landis, Amy E.

doi:10.1002/9780470649848.ch26

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…When producing LA from corn, the production of biomass and the biorefinery process are the two main contributing life cycle stages dominating impacts related to global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, human carcinogenic toxicity, land-use, and water consumption (Table 4a). This is consistent with earlier findings, where these two life cycle stages are found to be the main drivers of overall environmental performance for LA (Gironi & Piemonte, 2011;Landis, 2010;Madival et al, 2009) and succinic acid (Breedveld et al, 2014;Smidt et al, 2015).…”

Section: Relevance Of Life Cycle Stages Across Selected Feedstock Gsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…For land‐use and freshwater eutrophication, our results are about one order of magnitude lower than results from some existing studies (Groot & Borén, ; Madival et al, ), while being in the same range as results from other studies (Papong et al, ). For marine eutrophication, our results are about 30% lower than what has been presented elsewhere (Landis, ), while compared with results presented earlier for water use impacts (Vink, Glassner, Kolstad, Wooley, & O'Connor, ) and ecotoxicity impacts (Landis, ), our results are up to one order of magnitude higher. These differences can partly be explained by including iLUC impacts in our study, affecting various other impact categories to different extents.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 60%

“…Existing LCA studies performed on biochemicals show important trends and limitations. When biochemicals and derived products are compared to their functionally equivalent fossil‐based products, LCA results indicate that with respect to certain impact categories, biochemicals often perform better (e.g., global warming: Hanes, Cruze, Goel, & Bakshi, ; Madival, Auras, Singh, & Narayan, ; Patel et al, ; Vink & Davies, ; human toxicity: Landis, ; Papong et al, ; acidification: Hanes et al, ; Landis, ), whereas they may perform worse than their fossil‐based counterparts in other impact categories (e.g., particulate matter exposure: Landis, ; Madival et al, ; Smidt et al, ; ecotoxicity: Landis, ; Smidt et al, ; van der Harst, Potting, & Kroeze, ; eutrophication: Breedveld et al, ; Gironi & Piemonte, ; Papong et al, ; Urban & Bakshi, ; land‐use: Daful, Haigh, Vaskan, & Görgens, ; Patel et al, ). However, several studies focus exclusively on assessing global warming impacts and do not include other relevant environmental impacts, thus overlooking burden shifting from one environmental problem to another.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental hotspots of lactic acid production systems

et al. 2019

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Using selected bio‐based feedstocks as alternative to fossil resources for producing biochemicals and derived materials is increasingly considered an important goal of a viable bioeconomy worldwide. However, to ensure that using bio‐based feedstocks is aligned with the global sustainability agenda, impacts along the entire life cycle of biochemical production systems need to be evaluated. This will help to identify those processes and technologies, which should be targeted for optimizing overall environmental sustainability performance. To address this need, we quantify environmental impacts of biochemical production using distinct bio‐based feedstocks, and discuss the potential for reducing impact hotspots via process optimization. Lactic acid (LA) was used as an example biochemical derived from corn, corn stover, and macroalgae (Laminaria sp.) as feedstocks of different technological maturity. We used environmental life cycle assessment (LCA), a standardized methodology, considering the full life cycle of the analyzed biochemical production systems and a broad range of environmental impact indicators. Across production systems, feedstock production and biorefinery processes dominate life cycle impact profiles, with choice in energy mix and biomass processing as main influencing aspects. Results show that uncertainty decreases with increasing technological maturity. When using Laminaria sp. (least mature among selected feedstocks), impacts are mainly driven by energy utilities (up to 86%) due to biomass drying. This suggests to focus on optimizing or avoiding this process for significantly increasing environmental sustainability of Laminaria sp.‐based LA production. Our results demonstrate that applying LCA is useful for identifying environmental impact hotspots at an earlier stage of technological development across biochemical production systems. With that, our approach contributes to improving the environmental sustainability of future biochemical production as part of moving toward a viable bioeconomy worldwide.

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Section: Relevance Of Life Cycle Stages Across Selected Feedstock Gsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 60%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental hotspots of lactic acid production systems

et al. 2019

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“…The applications of PLA include clear and opaque rigid plastics for packaging, disposable goods, durable goods, and bottles, as well as films and fibers for a variety of purposes [8,9]. PLA can be blended with petroleum-based polymers or fibers, either synthetic or natural, to improve the heat resistance or durability of the plastic [10]. PLA-based plastics can be biodegradable and compostable, features that offer a wider variety of options for disposal [11].…”

Section: Oil-based Plastics (Fossil Resources)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Bio-Based Products on Waste Management

2020

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This article focuses on the end-of-life management of bio-based products by recycling, which reduces landfilling. Bio-plastics are very important materials, due to their widespread use in various fields. The advantage of these products is that they primarily use renewable materials. At its end-of-life, a bio-based product is disposed of and becomes post-consumer waste. Correctly designing waste management systems for bio-based products is important for both the environment and utilization of these wastes as resources in a circular economy. Bioplastics are suitable for reuse, mechanical recycling, organic recycling, and energy recovery. The volume of bio-based waste produced today can be recycled alongside conventional wastes. Furthermore, using biodegradable and compostable bio-based products strengthens industrial composting (organic recycling) as a waste management option. If bio-based products can no longer be reused or recycled, it is possible to use them to produce bio-energy. For future effective management of bio-based waste, it should be determined how these products are currently being managed. Methods for valorizing bio-based products should be developed. Technologies could be introduced in conjunction with existing composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure as parts of biorefineries. One option worth considering would be separating bio-based products from plastic waste, to maintain the effectiveness of chemical recycling of plastic waste. Composting bio-based products with biowaste is another option for organic recycling. For this option to be viable, the conditions which allow safe compost to be produced need to be determined and compost should lose its waste status in order to promote bio-based organic recycling.

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“…Polylactic Acid (PLA) Framework-Based PCMs. PLA (Figure 17) is a versatile aliphatic biodegradable polyester macromolecule that has sought because of their functions in fields varying from the biomedical industry 209 to packaging, 210 engineering industries 211 to plasticulture, 212 and also in environmental sectors as adsorbents, 213 denitrification-assisting materials, 214 and bioremediation materials, 215 because of their multitudinous characteristics mentioned below:…”

Section: Poly(vinyl Alcohol) (Pvoh)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodegradable Polymeric Solid Framework-Based Organic Phase-Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage

Prajapati

Kandasubramanian

2019

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.

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Phase-change materials (PCMs) are utilized for thermal energy storage (TES) to bridge the gap between supply and demand of energy. Organic PCMs, similar to paraffins, fatty acids, and polyethylene glycol, are extensively explored, thanks to their high TES capacity (∼5–10 times more than the sensible heat storage of water/rock), wide temperature range (spanning from −5 °C to 190 °C), good thermal stability over heating–cooling cycles (∼100 cycles), etc. However, “leakage” of PCMs upon transformation from solid to liquid has limited their usage as TES materials; thus, PCMs are confined to a biopolymeric framework for circumventing seepages. However, extensive analysis has concluded that there is a deficiency in availability of consolidated data on biopolymeric-based framework for PCMs. Thus, this review covers various literatures on the application of assorted biopolymers as framework for PCM. Simultaneously, we have also discussed on importance of biopolymers for constructing a framework for PCMs. Finally, the review concludes with future prospects, along with possibilities and disputes on the course of their practical application.

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Cradle to Gate Environmental Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment of Poly(Lactic Acid)

Cited by 10 publications

References 39 publications

Environmental hotspots of lactic acid production systems

Environmental hotspots of lactic acid production systems

Effect of Bio-Based Products on Waste Management

Biodegradable Polymeric Solid Framework-Based Organic Phase-Change Materials for Thermal Energy Storage

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