Start
Nov 24, 2014 - 15:00
End
Nov 24, 2014 - 16:00
Venue
Room 118 Creativity Hall Chemical Engineering
Event Type
Speaker
Dr. Prasad Mandade Department of Chemical Engineering Institute of Chemical Technology Mumbai India
Title
Sustainability Assessment of Bio based Fuels and Products Using Thermodynamic Methods
Abstract: It is widely recognized that conservation of natural capital is vital for sustainable development. Industrial societies are increasingly recognizing the need for shifting to more environmentally conscious activities. Consequently there is a need for modifying existing processes and developing new technologies that minimize environmental impact while providing stimulating economic value to businesses. Over the last few decades issues such as fossil fuel depletion and global warming have strongly motivated research on renewable energy technologies. Among the alternatives being developed biofuels have gained an increased interest worldwide due to abundant availability of biomass in many countries. In addition to technological advances development of appropriate biofuel policy and corporate decisions about adopting or manufacturing these products require insight into the life cycle environmental implications of alternate technologies. Such life cycle or footprint information for biofuels has not been available for India and such studies for other countries are of limited use. In this presentation we will describe our effort for developing a life cycle inventory for producing ethanol from various lignocellulosic feedstocks available in India. The biggest challenge in such work is collection of relevant data. In this work data is compiled from different sources such as journal articles the ministries of statistics and agriculture the Indiastat database and communication with individual experts. Variation in the inventory is addressed by collecting data from multiple sources when available and doing the calculations with mean median high and low values. This work considers the life cycles of ethanol production from feedstocks such as sugarcane cotton stalk rice husk wheat stalk sorghum stalk and sugarcane bagasse. These are compared based on metrics such as energy return on investment life cycle greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint land use and water use per litre of ethanol produced. Advanced thermodynamic methods such as exergy and emergy analysis are used to provide deeper insight about the life cycle such as the contribution of ecosystem services and opportunities for improving the life cycle impact. These methods also provide aggregate sustainability metrics. The present work contributes to this effort by exploring the application of life cycle assessment first law energy analysis and exergy analysis emergy analysis to emerging technologies. It also provides useful insight for policy decision making for biofuel sector. Acrolein production case study provides the application of the systems approaches for selection of the alternative from bio and fossil resources. Challenges in extending this work to a complete life cycle impact assessment and to consider a broader analysis boundary will also be discussed.