Sustainability assessment of biomass resource utilization based on production of entropy – Case study of a bioethanol concept

• Increasing interest for use of biomass both for biofuels and materials replacing fossil resources givesincreasing reason to make sure that we optimally use available bioresources. Biomass resources shouldpreferably be converted to a maximum of beneficial products with a minimum of harm to the environ-ment. From the second law of thermodynamics we might conclude that the most efficient, and thereforeperhaps the most sustainable, utilization of available resources should be the one generating the leastamount of entropy. The purpose of this study is to investigate if the entropy production of a process couldbe used for performance assessment of biomass conversion processes and to explore its implications as apossible aggregated measure for sustainability assessment of such processes. The investigated methodol-ogy includes calculation of entropy generation due to both material and energy dispersal and also due tomixing effect of emissions in the environment. The methodology is tested in a case study of the IntegratedBiomass Utilization System (IBUS) in Denmark and its different process routes for bioethanol productionwith several co-products. The impact of energy integrating the IBUS plant with a coal power plant is alsoassessed to investigate how the assessment outcome is changed by such system changes. The entropyassessment results are compared with an evaluation using traditional LCA methodology. The results fromthe case study highlight the importance of well integrated and well optimized systems for utilization ofbiomass. The correlation between the results of entropy generation and weighted environmental load inthis case suggest that entropy generation as assessment tool is worth further exploration.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Biorefinery

Entropy

Life cycle assessment

Sustainable use biomass

Environmental aspects

Biomass conversion

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