Environmental impact assessment of cascading use of wood in bio-fuels and bio-chemicals

Feasibility of wood as a renewable carbon feedstock for the production of chemicals in Europe

“…Energy recuperation should only be considered at the end of the cascade, after repeated recycling. 30 When burning wood for low-grade bioenergy production is no longer viewed as an end-of-life treatment option, it is not unthinkable that the chemical industry can become a major consumer of woody biomass. The projected supply of primary and secondary woody biomass normally intended for bioenergy production amounts to 83 Mt C year −1 , which is well above the expected carbon intake of 65 Mt C year −1 of the chemical industry in 2050.…”

“…By refining woody biomass into chemicals, the carbon captured by plant photosynthesis remains sequestered when processed into synthetic materials that have a long life time or are extensively recycled, 4,18 in contrast with low‐grade bioenergy production, where CO 2 is emitted into the atmosphere instantly. Energy recuperation should only be considered at the end of the cascade, after repeated recycling 30 …”

Stepping away from purified solvents in reductive catalytic fractionation: a step forward towards a disruptive wood biorefinery process

“…S7 (ESI †). Unlike with the LCAs conducted by Liao et al 55 and Bartling et al, 50 and inspired by recent work of Navare et al, 74 we did not adopt the carbon neutrality principle in developing our LCA. This principle presumes that the uptake and emission of biogenic carbon, i.e., the carbon originally embedded in the plant biomass, are equally balanced.…”

Lignin for energy applications – state of the art, life cycle, technoeconomic analysis and future trends

“…Due to the CO 2 sequestration potential of wood, the definition of the system boundaries can be shifted. 324,325 It takes between 20 and 80 years for softwood trees to absorb its equivalent in CO 2 . 321 Therefore, most LCA's are conducted over a period of 100 years to assume carbon neutrality.…”

“…Therefore, a wood-based product with a lifetime less than 100 years would need to account on the amount of CO 2,eq. released by the incineration of the wood used in the product manufacture (between 1.95 to 2.08 CO 2 eq.,kg per kg of wood, dependant on the plant species and age 325 ).…”