Safflower-based biorefinery producing a broad spectrum of biofuels and biochemicals: A life cycle assessment perspective

Global environmental awareness has encouraged further research towards biofuel production and consumption. Despite the favorable properties of biofuels, the sustainability of their conventional production pathways from agricultural feedstocks has been questioned. Therefore, the use of non-food feedstocks as a promising approach to ensure sustainable biofuel production is encouraged. However, the use of synthetic solvents/chemicals and energy carriers during biofuel production and the consequent adverse environmental effects are still challenging. On the other hand, biofuel production is also associated with generating large volumes of waste and wastewater. Accordingly, the circular bioeconomy as an innovative approach to ensure complete valorization of feedstocks and generated waste streams under the biorefinery scheme is proposed. In line with that, the current study aims to assess the environmental sustainability of bioethanol production in a safflower-based biorefinery using the life cycle assessment framework. Based on the obtained results, safflower production and its processing into 1 MJ bioethanol under the safflower-based biorefinery led to damage of 2.23E-07 disability-adjusted life years (DALY), 2.35E-02 potentially disappeared fraction (PDF)*m2*yr, 4.76E-01 kg CO2 eq., and 3.82 MJ primary on the human health, ecosystem quality, climate change, and resources, respectively. Moreover, it was revealed that despite adverse environmental effects associated with safflower production and processing, the substitution of conventional products, i.e., products that are the typical products in the market without having environmental criteria, with their bio-counterparts, i.e., products produced in the biorefinery based on environmental criteria could overshadow the unfavorable effects and substantially enhance the overall sustainability of the biorefinery system. The developed safflower-based biorefinery led to seven- and two-time reduction in damage to the ecosystem quality and resources damage categories, respectively. The reductions in damage to human health and climate change were also found to be 52% and 24%, respectively. The weighted environmental impacts of the safflower-based biorefinery decreased by 64% due to the production of bioproducts, mainly biodiesel and biogas, replacing their fossil-based counterparts, i.e., diesel and natural gas, respectively. Finally, although the main focus of the developed safflower-based biorefinery was biofuel production, waste valorization and mainly animal feed played a significant role in improving the associated environmental impacts.