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Life cycle assessment of raw materials for non-wood pulp mills: Hemp and ax
S. Gonzlez-Garca , A. Hospido, G. Feijoo, M.T. Moreira
Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782-Santiago de Compostela, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 29 April 2008
Received in revised form 29 January 2010
Accepted 31 January 2010
Keywords:
Environmental impact
Flax
Hemp
LCA
Life Cycle Assessment
Non-wood bre production
a b s t r a c t
At the present time, there is a remarkable increasing interest for using non-woody bres as raw materials
for pulp mills. The present study aims to identify and quantify the environmental impacts associated with
the production of hemp and ax bres for speciality paper pulp by using the Life Cycle Assessment (from
now, LCA) methodology. One ton of bre entering the pulp mill was used as functional unit in both
systems.
Inventory data for the foreground system (agricultural inputs and outputs) were obtained directly from
growers (Spanish plantations and expert advisors) and combined, when necessary, with bibliographic
sources. Data for the background system such as production of chemicals and pesticides, machinery or
electricity were taken from the Ecoinvent database.
The CML baseline 2000 methodology was selected to quantify the potential environmental impact
associated to the crops. Specically global warming (GWP), acidication (AP), eutrophication (EP) and
photochemical oxidant formation (POP) were evaluated. In addition, two ow indicators were considered:
energy (EU) and pesticide use (PU).
Production of hemp bre reported higher values for all the impact categories analyzed. On the contrary,
ow indicators were more intensive in the ax scenario due to irrigation and pesticide consumption. LCA
tool aided to identify the hot spots, so that a proposal for upgrading alternatives to reduce environmental
impacts could be made. Production and use of fertilizers as well as the stage of scutching were identied
as the hot spots in both crops; in addition, harvesting has also signicant contribution in hemp production
and irrigation regarding the ax scenario. Future work will be focused on the study of non-wood bre
processing in order to get a complete picture of the non-wood pulp life cycle.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Paper pulp manufacturing is the rst non-food industrial utilization of plant biomass (Gutierrez et al., 2001). Paper is dened as
a sheet mainly constituted by recycled or virgin bres of cellulose,
and its properties and resistance depend on its brous composition,
distribution in the sheet as well as number and strength of interbre bonds. In theory, all vascular plants in nature can be used as
sources of cellulosic bres for paper and pulp manufacture; however, both availability and production costs limit the natural source
of bre (Garca Hortal and Jimenez Alcaide, 2005).
Nowadays wood bres constitute the main virgin source of
paper pulp raw materials in developed countries (Sigoillot et al.,
2005). However, in the last years the pulp and paper sector has
been facing several problems related to the shortage of forest industry traditional resources. As a result, there is an increasing interest
924
925
Fig. 1. Subsystems included in the LCA of bre hemp/ax production: System boundaries and process chain. White boxes are common for both cultivations, black boxes only
occurs at hemp production and spotted boxes at ax production.
from the woody core in the retted straw. Roughly, the average bre
content in the retted straw is 33%. Next, bales of bre (325 kg per
bale) are formed with a round baler and storage (van der Werf,
2002a).
Inventory data of global process of hemp cultivation and processing is shown in Table 1. Production of sowing seed is considered
in the same way as the bre production system although with
some differences regarding sowing rate (lower), harvesting date
(up to one more month) and energy consumption in seed processing (Martnez et al., 2007; Narain and Singh, 1988).
Inventory data related to the production of fertilizers used in the
system (ammonium nitrate, potassium chloride and triple super
phosphate) were taken from the Ecoinvent database (Nemecek et
al., 2004). The use of agro-chemicals is an important source of
nutrient related emissions in eld with an important contribution to global warming, acidication and eutrophication (Charles
et al., 2006). Emissions rates are variable due to the inuence of
soil type, climatic conditions and agricultural practices and it is
necessary to develop an entire mineral balance for each particular scenario to determine emissions from fertilizers. However, the
lack of data made that impossible and the calculation of nutrient
related emissions (ammonia, nitrate, nitrogen, nitrous and nitrogen oxides, phosphate) was done by means of emission factors
proposed by several authors (Arrouays et al., 2002; Audsley et al.,
1997; EMEP/CORINAIR, 2006).
Hemp crop is rarely threatened by dangerous pest so no pesticides or herbicides are required. Supply of irrigated water is
unnecessary, due to sufcient annual rainfall.
Yields can vary largely depending on producers, climatic conditions, region, soil characteristics, sowing and harvesting date,
and the type of seed sown (Bennett et al., 2006; Forrest and
Young, 2006; Keller et al., 2001 Mediavilla et al., 2001; Schfer and
Honermeier, 2006; Struik et al., 2000). For example, an increase up
to 50% in total bre yield can be obtained increasing the seed rate
in 100% depending on seed type (Bennett et al., 2006).
2.3. Flax system description/production
Table 1
Inventory of bre hemp crop (Data per tonne of bre).
Inputs
Materialsa
Units
Seeds
kg
Fertilizers
Ammonium nitrate
Triple superphosphate
Potassium chloride
Diesel
Agricultural machinery
kg N
kg P2 O5
kg K2 O
kg
kg
Value
50.00
85.00
65.00
125.00
74.85
23.05
Energy
Units
Value
Electricity for
scutching
Transportation
Fertilizers
Fibre bales
kWh
336
t km
t km
90.48
180.00
Outputs
Products and co-products
Units
Value
t
t
t
t
3.00
1.00
1.50
0.50
a
Supplemental irrigation is not required as rainfall during growing season is
enough.
926
Table 2
Inventory for bre ax crop (data per tonnes of bre).
Inputs
Materials
Units
Seeds
Fertilizers
Calcium ammonium nitrate
Triple superphosphate
Potassium chloride
Herbicides
MCPA (40%)
Supplemental irrigation a
Diesel
Agricultural machinery
kg
Value
68.15
kg N
kg P2 O5
kg K2 O
30.06
41.76
41.76
g
m3
kg
kg
Energy
Units
Value
kWh
414.88
t km
kg km
t km
88.00
47.70
107.63
467.66
3340
60.67
11.36
Outputs
Products and co-products
Units
Value
t
t
t
t
3.70
1.00
2.70
0.37
according to the goal and scope dened here, would not provide
extra useful information.
Table 3 shows the environmental impact associated to the
production of both crops, being ax the scenario that produces
less impact in all the impact categories analyzed as well as nonrenewable resources use, while hemp presents lower values for
the pesticide active substance consumption.
Table 3
Environmental impacts of the cultivation, production and supply of hemp and ax
bre.
Impact categories
Acidication (AP)
Eutrophication (EP)
Global Warming (GWP)
Photochemical Oxidant
Formation (POP)
Flow indicators
Energy resources (EU)
Pesticide use (PU)
Unit
Hemp
Flax
kg SO2 eq. t1
kg PO4 3 eq. t1
kg CO2 eq. t1
kg C2 H4 eq. t1
9.39
14.6
1600
0.213
3.22
2.28
437
0.114
GJ t1
kg active
ingredient t1
13.2
12.4
1.18 104
Fig. 2. Relative contributions to GWP for bre hemp and bre ax scenarios. Field
operations refers to agricultural practices including scutching and baling. Transport refers to transportation of fertilizers, pesticides (if the case) and bre bales to
pulp mill. Others refers to the remaining processes.
Fig. 3. Relative contributions to AP for bre hemp and bre ax scenarios. Field
operations refers to agricultural practices including scutching and baling. Transport refers to transportation of fertilizers, pesticides (if the case) and bre bales to
pulp mill. Others refers to the remaining processes.
927
Fig. 4. Relative contributions to EP for bre hemp and bre ax scenarios. Field
operations refers to agricultural practices including scutching and baling. Transport refers to transportation of fertilizers, pesticides (if the case) and bre bales to
pulp mill. Others refers to the remaining processes.
928
Impact category
Main contributor
EP
GWP
AP
78.4
36.2
27.0
NO3
N2 O
NH3
40.4
98.8
96.4
27.5
12.9
10.2
23.0
N2 O
NH3
SO2
Natural gas
68.2
42.0
59.6
57.1
11.4
15.4
26.6
10.4
PO4 3
SO2
SO2
Oil crude
97.1
89.6
91.5
53.9
POP
EU
25.9
17.0
SO2
Uranium
96.2
36.6
EU
11.2
Oil crude
75.6
Fertilizers use
Fig. 5. Relative contributions to POP for bre hemp and bre ax scenarios. Field
operations refers to agricultural practices including scutching and baling. Transport refers to transportation of fertilizers, pesticides (if the case) and bre bales to
pulp mill. Others refers to the remaining processes.
Scutching
Harvesting
Fig. 6. Relative contributions to EU for bre hemp and bre ax scenarios. Field
operations refers to agricultural practices including scutching and baling. Transport refers to transportation of fertilizers, pesticides (if the case) and bre bales to
pulp mill. Others refers to the remaining processes.
Impact category
Main contributor
65.8
10.5
100
N2
NH3
MCPA
81.8
98.2
100
Irrigating
CO2
SO2
SO2
Uranium
98.2
69.2
52.3
47.0
N2 O
67.4
17.9
11.1
12.2
PO4 3
SO2
SO2
97.1
89.6
91.5
11.1
22.2
22.9
CO2
SO2
SO2
98.8
87.9
96.2
GWP
AP
POP
EU
40.5
29.6
44.2
71.0
Scutching
GWP
AP
POP
929
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