Authors: Carlos EscamillaAlvarado Héctor M PoggiVaraldo M Teresa PonceNoyola
Publish Date: 2016/06/03
Volume: 24, Issue: 33, Pages: 25602-25617
Abstract
A life cycle assessment LCA of a fourstage biorefinery concept coined HMZS that converts 1 t of organic fraction of municipal solid waste OFMSW into bioenergy and bioproducts was performed in order to determine whether it could be an alternative to common disposal of OFMSW in landfills in the Mexican reality The OFMSW is first fermented for hydrogen production then the fermentates are distributed 40 to the methane production 40 to enzyme production and 20 to the saccharification stage From hydrogen and methane up to 267 MJ and 204 kWh of gross heat and electricity were produced The biorefinery proved to be selfsustainable in terms of power 95 kWh net power but it presented a deficit of energy for heating services −155 MJ which was partially alleviated by digesting the wastes from the bioproducts stages −84 MJ Compared to landfill biorefinery showed lower environmental impacts in global warming down to −128 kg CO2eq ozone layer depletion 296 × 106 kg CFC11eq and photochemical oxidation potentials 0011 kg C2H4eq The landfarming of the digestates increased significantly the eutrophication impacts up to 20 below the eutrophication from landfilling 1425 kg PO4eq These results suggest that HMZS biorefinery could be an attractive alternative compared to conventional landfilling for the management of municipal solid wastes although new alternatives and uses of coproducts and wastes should be explored and tested Moreover the biorefinery system would benefit from the integration into the market chain of the bioproducts ie enzymes and hydrolysates among othersThe authors express their gratefulness to Professor Dr Philippe Garrigues EditorinChief and the guest editors of the Special Issue of Environmental Science and Pollution Research as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions which helped to significantly improve the revised manuscript Authors thank CONACYT for the scholarship granted to CEA No 209665 and for the support on enzyme research to MTPN Project No 104333 and the Infrastructure Project No 188281 to HMPV ICYTDF of Mexico City now SECITIDF is acknowledged for the economic support for the research on biorefineries grant PICCO 1027 and CINVESTAV for the economic support throughout the whole project
Keywords: