Regression modeling of field emissions in wheat production using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach

Field emissions of Irianian wheat production were investigated. Data were collected from 260 farms from the city of Fereydonshahr in the Esfahan province. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was developed to assess environmental impacts associated with the production of wheat in the studied region. Global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EP), human toxicity potential (HTP), terrestrial eco-toxicity potential (TEP), oxidant formation potential (OFP) and acidification potential (AP) were calculated as 2620.86 kg CO2 eq.t-1 (tonne of grain), 14.25 kg PO4 -2 eq.t-1, 1111.7 kg 1,4-DCB eq.t-1, 10.59 kg 1,4-DCB eq.t-1, 0.0073 kg ethylene eq.t-1 and 19.07 kg SO2 eq.t-1, respectively. In order to specify a relationship between input materials and field emissions (direct and indirect emission), the Cobb-Douglass production function was applied. The impacts of farm area, N, P2O5, K2O, diesel fuel and biocides were entered as independent variables and different impact categories as dependent variables. RMSE of models for GWP, EP, HTP, TEP, OFP and AP was 0.07, 0.19, 0.17, 0.34, 0.49 and 0.26, respectively. Accordingly with a rise in farm size level, the emissions per tonne of grain produced decreased

Critical impacts of energy targeting on the sustainability of advanced biobutanol separation

Biobutanol stands out as an advanced renewable biofuel, yet its production through fermentation yields a low butanol concentration, necessitating expensive and energy-intensive separation methods, particularly by distillation. Alternative approaches, including adsorptive separation, have emerged, with the 2-column zeolite-based process showing promise. This study employed Aspen Plus for simulating adsorptive separation, utilized Pinch technology for heat integration, and analyzed various alternatives using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Compared to the base case, which relied on our previously acquired experimental data and further purification through atmospheric distillation, the adoption of indirect heating/cooling adsorption reduced heating energy demand by 59.5%. Additionally, cooling energy usage was increased notably by 68.9%, and chilling prerequisites were eliminated. The implementation of Pinch technology further reduced heating and cooling energy requirements by approximately 36%. Multi-pressure distillation was also explored, revealing its potential to reduce heating energy consumption by 46.6%, accompanied by a modest 6.2% increase in cooling energy demand. A gate-to-gate LCA framework was used to evaluate the environmental impacts. The results showed that the combination of indirect heating/cooling adsorption, multi-pressure distillation, and energy-efficient practices resulted in over a 98% reduction in damages related to human health, ecosystem well-being, and resource depletion compared to the base case. Prioritization of key performance indicators revealed that human health had the most significant influence, with prominent midpoint effects attributed to human toxicity and global warming. This study underscores the pivotal role of energy targeting in curtailing energy consumption and enhancing the sustainability of adsorptive biobutanol separation

Development of an intelligent system based on ANFIS for predicting wheat grain yield on the basis of energy inputs

Energy is regarded as one of the most important elements in agricultural sector. During the last decades energy consumption in agriculture has increased, so finding the relationship between energy consumption and crop yields in agricultural production can help to achieve sustainable agriculture. In this study several adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models were evaluated to predict wheat grain yield on the basis of energy inputs. Moreover, artificial neural networks (ANNs) were developed and the obtained results were compared with ANFIS models. For the best ANFIS structure gained in this study, R, RMSE and MAPE were calculated as 0.976, 0.046 and 0.4, respectively. The developed ANN was a multilayer perceptron (MLP) with eleven neurons in the input layer, two hidden layers with 32 and 10 neurons and one neuron (wheat grain yield) in the output layer. For the best ANN model, R, RMSE and MAPE were computed as 0.92, 0.9 and 0.1, respectively. The results illustrated that ANFIS model can predict the yield more precisely than ANN

A Critical Review on Advancement and Challengesof Biochar Application in Paddy Fields: Environmental and Life Cycle Cost Analysis

Paddy fields emit considerable amounts of methane (CH4), which is a potent greenhousegas (GHG) and, thereby, causes significant environmental impacts, even as they generate wealth andjobs directly in the agricultural sector, and indirectly in the food-processing sector. Application ofbiochar in rice production systems will not just help to truncate their carbon footprints, but alsoadd to the bottom-line. In this work, the authors have reviewed the literature on climate change,human health, and economic impacts of using organic residues to make biochar for the additionto croplands especially to rice paddy fields. Biochar-bioenergy systems range in scale from smallhousehold cook-stoves to large industrial pyrolysis plants. Biochar can be purveyed in dierentforms—raw, mineral-enriched, or blended with compost. The review of published environmental lifecycle assessment (E-LCA) studies showed biochar has the potential to mitigate the carbon footprint offarming systems through a range of mechanisms. The most important factors are the stabilization ofthe carbon in the biochar and the generation of recoverable energy from pyrolysis gases produced asco-products with biochar as well as decreased fertiliser requirement and enhanced crop productivity.The quantitative review of E-LCA studies concluded that the carbon footprint of rice produced inbiochar-treated soil was estimated to range from -1.43 to 2.79 kg CO2-eq per kg rice grain, implying asignificant reduction relative to rice produced without a biochar soil amendment. The suppressionof soil-methane emission due to the biochar addition is the dominant process with a negativecontribution of 40–70% in the climate change mitigation of rice production. The review of the lifecycle cost studies on biochar use as an additive in farmlands demonstrated that biochar applicationcan be an economically-feasible approach in some conditions. Strategies like the subsidization ofthe initial biochar capital cost and assignment of a non-trivial price for carbon abatement in futurepricing mechanisms will enhance the economic benefits for the rice farmers

A biorefinery platform to valorize organic fraction of municipal solid waste to biofuels : An early environmental sustainability guidance based on life cycle assessment

The biorefining of biowastes, specifically the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), into biofuels and high-value products is an energy-demanding process, still immature, and largely dependent on the process configuration and efficiency of employed microorganisms. Such issues might undermine the environmental sustainability of the biorefinery by inducing adverse impacts on human health, ecosystem quality, climate change, and resources, which need to be explored before the process scale-up. Hence, this study was performed as early sustainability guidance to investigate the environmental impacts of different biorefinery platforms for biofuels production from OFMSW. More specifically, three pretreatment methods (i.e., acetone organosolv, acid, and hot water), two hydrolysis treatments (i.e., acidic and enzymatic), and two fermentation alternatives (i.e., ethanolic fermentation and acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation) were investigated. Based on European Commission's Joint Research Center instruction, the environmental impacts were studied using consequential life cycle assessment for the macro-level decision context. The results demonstrated that ABE fermentation scenarios were not environmentally favorable because the avoided impacts from final products were not sig-nificant enough to compensate for the induced environmental burdens from acetone pretreatment. On the contrary, the ethanolic fermentation scenarios with either acid or hot water pretreatment outperformed both ABE fermentation and ethanolic fermentation with acetone pretreatment. Based on the results, the scenario including simultaneous dilute acid pretreatment and hydrolysis of OFMSW followed by ethanolic fermentation manifested the best performance in all damage categories, as compared to those including acetone pretreatment or higher consumption of enzymes. Such improvements in this scenario led to the highest net saving of-842 potentially disappeared fraction (PDF)/m2/yr,-249.95 kg CO2 eq, and-3275.22 MJ primary per ton of OFMSW on ecosystem quality, climate change, and resources, respectively, and the lowest net burden of 1.54 x 10-5 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) per ton of OFMSW on human health. The results of sensitivity analysis on this scenario demonstrated that the substitution of excess heat for marginal heat with fossil origin can consid-erably decrease impacts on human health