Uncertainty Analysis in Life Cycle Assessments Applied to Biorefineries Systems: A Critical Review of the Literature

Abstract

The aim of the present article was to investigate the relationship between uncertainty analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) in scientific publications that address the application of LCA in biorefineries systems. Uncertainty analysis and its relationship with environmental impact assessment studies, especially those that address the application of LCA, is a research topic that requires attention because of its possible influence on results. A reference base was defined using a systematic approach and bibliometric analysis, with 64 scientific publications extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus® databases, which were analyzed using two computational tools: VOSviewer and SciMAT. This group of publications helped establish the correlation and evolution over the last 10 years of the three key themes: “uncertainty analysis,” “LCA,” and “biorefineries.” The results of bibliometric analysis for the established framework pointed to a close and important relationship among these themes. The results were presented quantitatively and qualitatively, and the latter were visualized using infographics, co-occurrence networks, and strategic keyword diagrams. Although the study confirmed the relevance of uncertainties analysis to support LCA studies, it was identified a secondary role for scientific studies analyzed. The study also presents the analysis and discussions of the main publications found in the scientific literature. Future studies should conduct a more in-depth analysis of advanced knowledge representation and reasoning strategies about uncertainty, such as probabilistic ontologies.