Page 569 - Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

518 Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

Figure 23.4 LCA inventory for synthesis of biosurfactant from a microbe. LCA, Life-cycle
analysis.

The use of microbial consortium of Azotobacter vinelandii and Pseudomonas sp.
in biosurfactant production indicated that evolved 4545 6 817.93 g CO 2 in terms of
gCO 2 /1000 kg biosurfactant, a global warming potential of 0.046 t/1000 kg biosur-
factant and a eutrophication potentials of 0.008 t/1000 kg and 0.0014 tonnes/
1000 kg of biosurfactant (Aru and Onwurah, 2018). The biosynthesis of biosurfac-
tant alkanolamide over conventional sodium methylate based alkanolamide
revealed that the former was more energy efficient (Adlercreutz et al., 2010).
However, the former was 1.4 times costlier than conventional alkanolamide synthe-
sis mainly attributed due to the use of immobilized lipases in the biosynthetic
process.

23.6 Conclusion

The relevance of LCA obtaining a clear and close look at the impact of a process is
well evident from concurrent research. However, the reliability of such analysis
greatly relies on the effective inclusion of both environmental and human toxicity
impact factors. The choice of suitable proxy data and efficient LCA analytical
expertise becomes very essential. The chapter came to a conclusion that LCA
favored biosurfactant production than the synthetic detergents. Thus the choice of
better and eco-friendly solutions to surfactant synthesis should be adopted for the
proper environmental sustainability.