Sustainability evaluation of biodiesel produced from microalgae chlamydomonas sp grown in brewery wastewater

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2014

Authors

Teresa M. Mata (Author) FEUP; Janaína Santos (Author) FEUP; Adélio M. Mendes (Author) FEUP; Nídia S. Caetano (Author) FEUP; António A. Martins (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Chemical Engineering Transactions

Vol. 37

Pages: 823-828

ISSN: 1974-9791

Publisher: Italian Association of Chemical Engineering - AIDIC

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 27 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 32 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Chemical engineering

CORDIS: Technological sciences > Engineering > Chemical engineering

Associated Projects

UI0511 - PROJECTO ESTRATÉGICO - UI 511 - 2013-2014

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-009-CG3

DOI: 10.3303/CET1437138

Abstract (EN): This study performs a sustainability evaluation of biodiesel from microalga Chlamydomonas sp. grown in 20 % (v/v) of brewery’s wastewater, blended with pentose sugars (xylose, arabinose or ribose resulting from the hydrolysis of brewer’s spent grains (BSG). The life cycle steps considered for the study are: microalgae cultivation, biomass processing and lipids extraction at the brewery site, and its conversion to biodiesel at a dedicated external biofuel’s plant. Three sustainability indicators (LCEE, FER and GW) were considered and calculated using experimental data. Literature data was used, whenever necessary, to complement life cycle data, thus allowing a more accurate sustainability evaluation. A comparative analysis of the biodiesel life cycle steps was also conducted, with the main goal of identifying which steps need to be improved. Results show that biomass processing, especially cell harvesting, microalgae cultivation, and lipids extraction are the main process bottlenecks. It is also analysed the influence on the microalgae biodiesel sustainability of adding each pentose sugar to the cultivation media, concluding that it strongly influences the biomass and lipid productivity. In particular, the addition of xylose is preferable in terms of lipid productivity, but from a sustainability point of view, ribose is the best, though the difference from xylose is not significant. Nevertheless, culture without pentose addition presents the best sustainability results.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

Notes: Publicação abrangida pelo Journal Citation Reports 2015

No. of pages: 6