Environmental Impact Associated with the Supply Chain and Production of Biodiesel from Jatropha curcas L. through Life Cycle Analysis

• Published in: Sustainability Vol. 10; no. 5; p. 1451
• Main Authors: Giraldi-Díaz, Mario, De Medina-Salas, Lorena, Castillo-González, Eduardo, De la Cruz-Benavides, Max
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 07.05.2018
• Subjects: Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Carbon dioxide; Cultivation; Depletion; Diesel; Energy demand; Energy industry; Environmental impact; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Jatropha curcas; Mineral resources; Resource depletion; Seeds; Supply chains; Sustainability; Terrestrial environments; Toxicity; Water consumption
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su10051451

The energy market is diversifying, allowing for the development of biofuels that seek to reduce environmental impact and be energetically competitive with conventional fuels. One of the aforementioned biofuels is the biodiesel that is produced from the oil extracted from the seeds of Jatropha curcas L. This research uses life cycle analysis (LCA) tool to analyze the following environmental impacts associated with its production: energy, water footprint, carbon footprint, mineral resource depletion, fossil resource depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and human toxicity. The following stages were evaluated: (i) cultivation, (ii) the extraction of oil, and (iii) the biodiesel manufacturing process. The results showed that the overall process has an accumulated energy demand of 37.9 MJ/kg biodiesel, and generates 2.16 kg CO2 eq. of greenhouse gases (GHG) per kg of biofuel. The cultivation stage had the greatest contribution towards its energy and carbon footprints, taking up 45% and 60%, respectively. However, considering the energy valorization of the coproducts that are generated in the agricultural and extraction stages for self-consumption into the product system, both categories of impact mentioned above were reduced by 35% and 41%, respectively.