Determining The Seaweed Solid Waste-Based Ethanol Potential from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the environmental impact of ethanol production using solid waste as a raw material from the extraction of red seaweed. Sources of data used in this study derived from literature studies. The type of red seaweed studied was k-carrageenan extracted from Eucheuma cottoni, Eucheuma spinosum, and Gracilaria Manilaensis. The system limitation in this study is gate-to-gate analysis, which includes processing raw materials to ethanol products using the relative mass and energy value method using a cut-off value of 5%. The value of CO2 emissions from ethanol production using solid waste from Eucheuma cottonii is 2.97´10-14 kg CO2eq/kg of ethanol. The production of ethanol using solid waste from Eucheuma spinosum and Gracilaria manilaensis resulted in CO2 emissions of 5.72 and 2.87 kg CO2 eq/kg of ethanol, respectively. Bioethanol from solid waste extracted from k-carrageenan from Eucheuma cottonii becomes an environmentally friendly biofuel compared to bioethanol from sugarcane and sweet bagasse sorghum. The result of the main environmental impact study using the LCA method shows that the fermentation process, followed by the production of enzymes and electricity, is the main contributor to CO2 emissions.

Keywords

• bioethanol
• life cycle assessment
• red seaweed
• solid waste