Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of joint extraction of Eucommia powder, gum, water-soluble polysaccharide and alkali-extractable polysaccharide from Eucommia leaves

The economic feasibility and environmental burdens of a process extracting Eucommia powder, Eucommia gum, water-soluble polysaccharide, and alkali-extractable polysaccharide from Eucommia leaves are evaluated by modeling a 900 kg of Eucommia leaves per day facility. Total capital investment (TCI) and total product cost were separately estimated to be $2.64 million and $7.12 million while an internal facility rate of return (IRR) of 30.0% was calculated. The GWP100a emission for Eucommia powder is 111 kg of CO(2)eq per kg of Eucommia powder, the CED for Eucommia powder is 2200 MJ per kg of Eucommia powder, and the EI99 for Eucommia powder is 9.15 points per kg of Eucommia powder when using mass-based allocation. The life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results using economic value-based allocation is around 4 times higher than the corresponding LCIA results using mass-based allocation. Therefore, the joint extraction process could be economically attractive but could not be environmentally-friendly.

Automated summary

The economic feasibility and environmental burden of extracting Eucommia powder, Eucommia gum, water-soluble polysaccharide, and alkali-extractable polysaccharide from Eucommia leaves were evaluated. The process is economically attractive but not environmentally-friendly.