Life Cycle Analysis
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Goal and Scope
The main goal of this section is to study the environmental performance and identify the main environmental hotspots of biodiesel production from waste cooking oil (WCO). The environmental performance of WCO biodiesel was estimated employing the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Since, the main goal here is to evaluate the environmental performance of biodiesel, rather than assess the environmental consequences of a change in its life cycle, the ALCA approach was used. Mostly the system is complicated since the waste cooking oil contains different chemicals which might introduce some uncertainties to the study.
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System Boundary and Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)
Life cycle inventory includes the system boundary which starts at the transportation of the raw material WCO which is collected by lorries, trucks, or collecting drums. The LCI includes the used material input including the raw material, catalyst, Methanol, as well as the water used in the biodiesel refinery. The LCI includes the output boundary as well such as the catalyst and Glycol which are consider as the co-product, Wastewater from biodiesel refinery as well as the distillation residue which is recycled as an energy provider based on Ecoinvent 3.
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Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) Stage
In order to examine the environmental sustainability of the biodiesel production from waste cooking oil, and due to the lack of data, endpoint results are associated with higher levels of statistical uncertainty. the hierarch perspective was used based on the scientific and policy principles, where the proper management environmental impacts can be avoided. At midpoint level comprises 18 impact categories that are shown in table 1 which are from a study on a similar production plant. In order to reach endpoint, the midpoint impact categories are converted to endpoints, which can be aggregated into three damage categories, damage to human health, damage to ecosystem diversity, and damage to resource availability. Based on table 1, the total eco-indicator point is less than 900 which meets the European standard eco-indicator point of 1000 point for as an annual load of an average European citizen.
Table 1: midpoint results (Characterisation) to produce 1 tonne of biodiesel from WCO