Sustainability and life cycle cost analysis of biomass pyrolysis

Abstract

Pyrolysis is one of the commonly used methods to derive renewable bio-fuels from biomass. A life cycle analysis was performed to evaluate the sustainability and feasibility of such process by utilising simulation results from SuperPro Designer. The process boundary includes biomass pretreatment, main reaction and product collection regimes. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the influence of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin on the aspects of economic and environmental impact throughout the life cycle of biomass pyrolysis.