R. Rasheed, F. Tahir, F. Tahir
Government College Univeristy Lahore,
Pakistan
Keywords: life cycle analysis (LCA), sustainable development, bioenergy infrastructure
Summary:
The technologies utilized for the scrubbing of biogas are improving and becoming better. These strategies aim to improve the quantity of cleaner bio-methane accessible by decreasing CO2 emissions. It is now more vital to do research on the sustainability effects of technological interventions. This study's main goal is to do a life cycle analysis (LCA) on a cutting-edge biogas scrubbing and filtering system that is designed for widespread commercial-industrial usage especially in low-middle income developing countries. The whole of this system is built out of a glass-fiber composite material. In addition to efficiently eliminating CO2, siloxanes, sulphides, and the water residues of the biogas, this system is capable of producing up to 85% pure bio-methane. The scrubbing system's environmental sustainability is evaluated using the Life cycle assessment (LCA) scores for four feedstock ratios of cow/buffalo manure (CBM) and potato waste (PW), denoted as; CBM0:PW100, CBM75:PW25, CBM50:PW50, and CBM100:PW0, respectively. While six life cycle impact categories (freshwater ecotoxicity, climate change, land acidification, human toxicity, depletion of fossils, and water usage) have been selected for this sustainability analysis, and the corresponding functional unit (FU) is one 100 m3 of biogas. For each of the four feedstock types i.e., CBM100:PW0, CBM75:PW25, CBM50:W50, and CBM0:W10 the principal environmental implications are assessed as -1.20, 1.11, 1.07, and -1.16 kg of CO2 equivalents for climate change and -9.50, 8.27, 8.01, and -9.91 kg of oil equivalents for fossil depletion, respectively. While the CBM0:PW100 has portrayed the least fossil depletion potential, and CBM100:PW0 with the least climate change impact scores.