An environmental impact based approach for synthesis of palm fruit biorefineries from palm oil production chains

摘要

Waste generated in agroindustrial processes are improvement opportunities from an environmental viewpoint when this is used for obtaining valuable products and energy. In this work, the Waste Reduction Algorithm was implemented for the evaluation of biorefinery alternatives designed for the crude palm oil (CPO) production process under Northern Colombian conditions. Results showed that CPO (Case 1) and CPO-Palm kernel oil-Hydrogen (Case 3) topologies are more suitable compared to CPO-Palm kernel oil (Case 2) topology, since the case 2 had a positive PEI generated under the situations analysed. On the other hand, Case 3 presented a greater consumption rate of impacts generated due to the use of palm fruit bunches and palm cake to obtain products with less environmental effects such as hydrogen and palm kernel oil, respectively. However, this supposes a great expenditure of energy, which brings with it emissions of greenhouse gases depending on the source of energy.