Co-digestion of Macroalgae for Biogas Production: An LCA-based Environmental Evaluation

Energy Procedia 2015
Andrea Cappelli, Emanuele Gigli, Francesco Romagnoli, Silvano Simoni, Dagnija Blumberga, Massimiliano Palerno, Elisa Guerriero

Algae represent a favourable and potentially sustainable source of biomass for bioenergy-based industrial pathways in the future. The study, performed on a real pilot plant implemented in Augusta (Italy) within the frame of the BioWALK4Biofuels project, aims to figure out whether seaweed (macroalgae) cultivated in near-shore open ponds could be considered a beneficial aspect as a source of biomass for biogas production within the co-digestion with local agricultural biological waste. The LCA results confirm that the analysed A and B scenarios (namely the algae-based co-digestion scenario and agricultural mix feedstock scenario) present an environmental performance more favourable than that achieved with conventional non-renewable-based technologies (specifically natural gas - Scenario C). Results show that the use of seaweed (Scenario A) represent a feasible solution in order to replace classical biomass used for biofuel production from a land-based feedstock. The improvement of the environmental performances is quantifiable on 10% respect to Scenario B, and 38 times higher than Scenario C.

Keywords
marine macroalage; LCA; biogas; Anaerobic Co-digestion
DOI
10.1016/j.egypro.2015.06.002
Hyperlink
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187661021500692X

Cappelli, A., Gigli, E., Romagnoli, F., Simoni, S., Blumberga, D., Palerno, M., Guerriero, E. Co-digestion of Macroalgae for Biogas Production: An LCA-based Environmental Evaluation. Energy Procedia, 2015, Vol.72, pp.3-10. ISSN 1876-6102. Available from: doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2015.06.002

Publication language
English (en)