Life cycle assessment of olive pomace gasification for an up-draft fixed bed gasifier system

Biomass gasification has been considered as an important renewable energy alternative to deal with the environmental problems originating from fossil fuels and climate change effects. Olive pomace as a by-product of the olive oil production process is a significant biomass source. Although gasification technology is accepted as an environmentally friendly power system, the studies to determine its environmental impact via Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are very limited. LCA is a key tool to evaluate all environmental impacts from the beginning to the end of the process. The aim of this study is to assess the overall environmental impacts of the olive pomace gasification for electricity generation and evaluation of its solid by-products namely biochar and tar. Four scenarios were compared to estimate the environmental impacts of gasification by-products with a LCA approach, following to the cradle-to-grave approach. The production of olive, olive pomace generation during its processing for olive oil production, gasification of olive pomace, construction of the gasifier, gas cleaning system and syngas composition have been included in the evaluations. It is clear from the analysis results that the scenarios have very low impact values in the case of beneficial usage of biochar in different industries. In terms of ozone

Automated summary

Biomass gasification is an important renewable energy option for addressing environmental issues caused by fossil fuels and climate change. This study assessed the environmental impacts of olive pomace gasification for electricity generation, including the evaluation of its by-products biochar and tar. The analysis results show that the scenarios have very low impact values, particularly when biochar is beneficially used in different industries.