Biomass supply chain optimisation via novel Biomass Element Life Cycle Analysis (BELCA)
Introduction
High dependence of fossil fuel leads to over usage of natural resources leading to environmental pollution and resources limitation issue. Over 85% of global energy demand is from non-sustainable fuel such as coal, oil, and gas [1]. Therefore, worldwide development has moved toward sustainability to minimise usage of non-renewable resources. One of the highly anticipate approach is development and utilisation of bio-resources as alternative feedstocks to produce higher value downstream products. Yoon et al. [2] defines biomass as a renewable energy source from biological materials such as plants, trees, and municipal solid wastes. Carmona et al. [3] uses nineteen Populus spp. clones as biomass feedstock for energy production. Biomass-fueled combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) system is exploited to reduce fossil energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission [4]. Exploration in bio-resources leads to the success of implementation in few bio-resources, such as palm oil industry. Lam et al. [5] claims that palm oil is the cheapest edible oil with potential to be converted into biofuel. Yusoff [6] summarised utilisation of palm oil biomass in energy generation and fertiliser production. Development in bio-resources has been focuses on biomass at the moment due to arise of ethical issue on utilising food crops as feedstock for chemical product and energy [5]. Nevertheless, successful implementation of biomass industry has yet to be accomplished due to high logistic cost for raw material [7]. Ekşioğlu et al. [8] suggested that biomass within 50 miles of radius is preferable by biorefineries due to high transportation cost to bring in biomass further away from that radius. Fluctuations in availability and quality of biomass are part of the limitation in the development as well. On the other hand, the complexity of biomass characteristic and poor understanding of each biomass species lead to an over unify biomass development phenomenon. For example, rapid breakthrough of palm oil biomass catches the interest of researchers and de-motivates them to study other biomass, leading to underutilisation of other potential biomass species. Being one of the largest in palm oil production, Malaysia produces about 41% in 2008 [2], 39% in 2009 [9] and 47% in 2010 [10] of world palm oil production. This over dependence in palm oil industry might causes economically insecure if palm oil industry is replaced with new technology in future. This work is also dedicated to tackle the issue of poor understanding and underutilisation of biomass.
A systematic biomass analysis approach is introduced to investigate properties of each potential bio-resource in the system. Biomass Element Life Cycle Analysis (BELCA) is proposed from inspiration of previous work, the element classification in Biomass Demand-Resources Value Targeting (DRVT) [11] and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-in application such as capturing carbon, water, nitrogen, sulphur, and other footprint [12]. Čuček et al. [13] conducted multi-objective model on relations between footprints within biomass energy supply chain. BELCA acts as a platform to investigate potential value in each biomass within a system. In other word, key element footprint of biomass industry processes is evaluated. Key elements such as cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, ash, moisture, calorific value, carbon, hydrogen, sulphur, nitrogen and size are used as the basis for biomass element classification. This approach is carried out with an assumption that no significant affects on biomass technology yield as long as the key elements of feedstock (single biomass or mixture) are within an element acceptance range of respective technology. The main objective of BELCA is to: (i) discover potential underutilised biomass via element classification, (ii) improvement of biomass supply chain via consideration of underutilised biomass.
With proper analysis and data compilation, better understanding of underutilised biomass characteristic can be achieved. Discovery of potential underutilised biomass enables improvement over current biomass supply chain as alternative resources and source point to reduce raw material and logistic cost. As BELCA consists of concept of LCA, each process stages within an industry will be studied to evaluate potential utilisation of process waste. Many have conducted work converting waste to downstream product such as energy [14]. Element classification will be conducted on respective biomass generated within the process to allow wider coverage in the search for alternative resources and minimises waste management. Utilising resources from existing process waste is much economically efficient and environmental friendly. With proper implementation, BELCA acts as a decision and management tools, allowing better planning and development. With the proposed BELCA approach, utilization of each potential biomass in the system can be well analysed, provide better understanding of the system resources and allows effective planning and development.
Section snippets
Methodology
General research methodology for the novel BELCA approach is presented in Fig. 1. It shows the four general steps for the proposed approach. Each step is further elaborated in Sections 2.1 System life cycle analysis, 2.2 Element classification, 2.3 Graphical representative of biomass characteristic, 2.4 Incorporate element targeting into supply chain respectively.
Case study of comparison between existing biomass supply chain system with BELCA approach
As an illustration of BELCA approach, a theoretical case study of regional biomass supply chain is presented. The case study is constructed in daily basis, which is based on common practice in some region such as Malaysia. Fig. 6 shows a mapping of a biomass industry system in Cartesian coordinate system. Each unit of coordinate represents 10 km of distance. All facility within the regional area is assumed to be existing facilities. The main objective of the case study is to illustrate the
Conclusions and future works
In this paper, a novel BELCA approach is introduced to enhance the main stream biomass supply chain with the underutilised biomass alternative sources. This approach proposed a novel method to study the characteristic of underutilised biomass, thus avoid the biomass value lost due to poor understanding of potential value within each biomass. Element characteristic is used to classify biomass instead of biomass species. This allows integration of all biomasses into existing system and evaluates
Acknowledgements
The financial support by The University of Nottingham Early Career Research and Knowledge Transfer Award – A2RHL6, the BiomassPlus Scholarship from Crops for the Future are very much appreciated, corporate grant sponsored by Global Green Synergy Sdn Bhd.
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