Assessment of Jatropha Curcas bioprocess for fuel production using LCA and CAPE

Abstract

The importance of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as an environmental decision support tool continues to increase rapidly in the recent years. Research on the environmental impacts of chemical engineering has gain a lot of popularity but it still needs bundles of improvement and expansion for its implementation in the industrial process evaluation. In this study, Life Cycle Assessment of biofuel production from Jatropha Curcas L. was conducted using an attributional approach. The assessment encompasses the cultivation of the crop, the oil extraction stage and finally, the biofuel production stage. IMPACT 2002+ based on mid-point perspective was applied. This study demonstrates the potential of second generation biofuel production to reduce environmental impact. While LCA method is mainly focus on products and raw data collection, we want to define a new approach based on process system engineering. We suggest ways for an integrated LCA and CAPE approach especially for agro-chemical applications