Energy and Greenhouse Gas Implications of Biodiesel Production from Jatropha curcas L. Mr. Kritana Prueksakorn Asst. Prof. Dr. Shabbir H. Gheewala* The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand * Corresponding author: shabbir_g@jgsee.kmutt.ac.th
Presentation Outline Introduction Background of Jatropha Life cycle assessment (LCA) LCA of biodiesel from Jatropha Discussion Conclusion
Source : Ministry of Energy, Department of Alternative Energy Development & Efficiency (2005). Thailand s Energy Import energy import (billion baht) 600 500 400 300 200 Electricity Coal Petroleum 100 0 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 year
Source : Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (2005). Expected Demand of Diesel in Thailand 50 million liter/day 85 million liter/day 60 million liter/day B10 8.5 million liter/day 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Jatropha curcas Linnaeus
Jatropha curcas Linnaeus (physic nut, purging nut, sa-bu-dum etc.) Oil plant in tropical zone. Survive in waste land. Height: 3-5 m. Maturity: after 4-5 years. Life span: over 20 years.
Exploitation of Jatropha Curcas L. (Bagani, 2004; Becker, 1999; Chutkaew, 2006; Gubitz, 1999)
Considerations The oil yields of Jatropha is low in poor land. 1) Net energy gain or loss? and how much? 2) Large consumption of resources? 3) New process, activity and product. Incomplete information. Source of emission release?
Life Cycle Assessment: LCA Materials Energy Process Other life cycles Products Wastes Byproducts Material extraction Material processing Product manufacturing Product use, maintenance, upgrade recovery disposal
LCA methodology Life cycle assessment framework Goal and scope definition Inventory analysis Impact assessment Interpretation Direct applications: Product development and improvement Marketing Strategic planning for researchers, producers and policymakers... Procedural framework of LCA. Source: ISO 14040 (1997)
Goal-objective of study To assess the life cycle energy use and global warming potential for Jatropha biodiesel production and use.
Scope of work The main analysis includes 1) farming process in concept of annual crop. 2) Jatropha oil extraction is operated by screw press machine. 3) biodiesel conversion process is operated by common facility model of transesterification 4) Usage of Jatropha methyl ester (JME)
Scope of work (cont ) Functional unit chosen is 1 GJ of liquid fuel. The environmental impact category is limited to global warming potential. The comparison is done with diesel as baseline. The allocation of environmental burdens to co-products is done on the basis of energy. The main results included are estimates of 1) overall energy requirements (excluding the production of herbicide and insecticide) 2) greenhouse gas emissions.
Scope of work (cont ) The keys assumptions are 1) Jatropha biodiesel meets the biodiesel standard 2) 1 GJ of biodiesel and diesel can be used for driving vehicle based on diesel engine for the same distance 3) The Jatropha growing requires the process of land preparation and new cutting set every 5 years to gain the satisfactory outputs 4) The distance for both diesel and biodiesel production facilities from the gas station is 100 km.
The system boundary of Jatropha Methyl Ester production
Inventory and background Jatropha plantation - Faculty of Agriculture Kamphaeng Saen Campus Kasetsart University - Annual crop; area 6.5 rai (1 rai = 1,600 m 2 ) - Crop density 2 x 1 m (800 trees/rai)
- Propagation - Cutting
- Land preparation - 1. Ploughing 2. Harrowing 3. Furrowing
- Plantation -
- Watering - watering 7,200 m 3 /rai/year by pumping
- Fertilizing - Fertilizer chemical formula 15-15-15 100 kilogram/rai/year
- Harvesting - Fresh fruit yield 2,500 kg/rai/year
Unit process of Jatropha farming
Jatropha oil production process
- Fruit drying - Fresh fruit yield 2,500 kg/rai/year 2,000 kg/rai/year
- Seed cracking capacity 120 kg seed/hour Seed 800 kg per rai
Jatropha seed pressing : Screw press capacity 25 liters oil/hour Jatropha oil 200 L. screw pressing engine
purification by filtering capacity 150 liters/hour Sediment
Unit process of Jatropha oil pressing
Transesterification (Alcoholysis) extraction refining Oil Crude oil Refined oil Transesterification with methanol Biodiesel Glycerol
Unit process of biodiesel conversion
Result and discussion
Net energy results of Life Cycle Impact Assessment process Total 884 Transesterification 353 Filtering 3 Oil pressing 69 Cracking Fertilization Fertilizer Irrigation 19 198 205 Cultivation 2 Land preparation 37 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 MJ Energy consumption for producing 1 GJ of Jatropha methyl ester and co-products
Net energy results of Life Cycle Impact Assessment process Total 18883 Biodiesel 1000 Glycerin Seed cake Peel Coat Leaves Wood 1519 2002 1647 2425 10289 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000 20000 Energy gain from the whole process of Jatropha Methyl Ester production per FU (1 GJ of JME) MJ
Global warming potential of JME (1) 4.7% 0.2% (2) (8) 24.3% (7) 0.5% (3) 26.1% (1) Land preparation (2) Cultivation (3) Irrigation Fertilization (4) Fertilizer (5) Cracking 10.9% (6) (6) Oil pressing (7) Filtering 3.0% (5) (4) 30.3% (8) Transesterification Representative carbon dioxide outputs for producing biodiesel from Jatropha by transesterification
Global warming potential of JME 300 kgco 2 eq 2 eq 250 200 246.1 236.9 (1) Production phase (1) production phase (2) Transportation during production phase (2) transportation during production phase 150 100 50 0 56.7 51.4 8.5 0.5 0.2 5.1 0.0 0.2 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) diesel JME biodiesel (3) product transport (3) Product transport (4) End-use (4) end-use (5) Total (5) total Comparison of life cycle GHG emissions of biodiesel and diesel
Interpretation Environmental improvement The production process should be improved first. Transesterification Fertilization Irrigation Recommendation Main sources of impacts 1. Alteration and maintenance of engine. 2. Find out the optimum input values for irrigation and fertilization process.
CONCLUSION The results of the study show a net energy gain from JME. GHG emissions from the production of biodiesel are less than diesel. Data are from one pilot plantation site. Data of biodiesel production and use are from secondary sources. Depletion of resource Nutrient enrichment from fertilization Ecological & human toxicity from chemical use Jatropha toxicity Cost of investment More consideration
Thank you for your kind attention
Scope: criteria of impacts Relevant LCI data Impact potentials Scale CO 2, CH 4, N 2 O, CO, NMCH 4 ; g CO 2 -eq. Global warming Global
Biodiesel properties from different feedstock types Vegetable oil Kinematic viscosity at 20 o C(mm 2 /s) Cetan no. ( o C) Heating Value (MJ/kg) Density (kg/l) Jatropha 67 23 41 38.0 0.920 Jatropha biodiesel 5.6 50 32.8 0.880 Soya bean 61 30 38 37.3 0.920 Soya bean biodiesel 5.4 45 33.5 0.885 Vaitilingom, G. and Liennard, A. (1997) Various vegetable oils as fuel for diesel and burners: J. curcas particularities. In: Gubitz, G. M., Mittelbach, M., and Trabi, M., editors, Biofuels and Industrial Products from Jatropha curcas, Managua, Nicaragua.