TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate and biodiversity impacts of low-density polyethylene production from CO2 and electricity in comparison to bio-based polyethylene
AU - Leppäkoski, Lauri
AU - Lopez, Gabriel
AU - Uusitalo, Ville
AU - Nieminen, Harri
AU - Järviö, Natasha
AU - Kosonen, Antti
AU - Koiranen, Tuomas
AU - Laari, Arto
AU - Breyer, Christian
AU - Ahola, Jero
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/7/15
Y1 - 2023/7/15
N2 - Plastics are essential materials for modern societies, but their production contributes to significant environmental issues. Power-to-X processes could produce plastics from captured CO2 and hydrogen with renewable electricity, but these technologies may also face challenges from environmental perspective. This paper focuses on environmental sustainability assessment of CO2-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compared to bio-based LDPE. Life cycle assessment has been applied to study climate impacts and land use related biodiversity impacts of different plastic production scenarios. According to the climate impact results, the carbon footprint of the produced plastic can be negative if the energy used is from wind, solar, or bioenergy and the carbon captured within the plastic is considered. In terms of biodiversity, land-use related biodiversity impacts seem to be lower from CO2-based polyethylene compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene. Forest biomass use for heat production in CO2-based polyethylene poses a risk to significantly increase biodiversity impacts. Taken together, these results suggest that CO2-based LDPE produced with renewable electricity could reduce biodiversity impacts over 96 % while carbon footprint seems to be 6.5 % higher when compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene.
AB - Plastics are essential materials for modern societies, but their production contributes to significant environmental issues. Power-to-X processes could produce plastics from captured CO2 and hydrogen with renewable electricity, but these technologies may also face challenges from environmental perspective. This paper focuses on environmental sustainability assessment of CO2-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compared to bio-based LDPE. Life cycle assessment has been applied to study climate impacts and land use related biodiversity impacts of different plastic production scenarios. According to the climate impact results, the carbon footprint of the produced plastic can be negative if the energy used is from wind, solar, or bioenergy and the carbon captured within the plastic is considered. In terms of biodiversity, land-use related biodiversity impacts seem to be lower from CO2-based polyethylene compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene. Forest biomass use for heat production in CO2-based polyethylene poses a risk to significantly increase biodiversity impacts. Taken together, these results suggest that CO2-based LDPE produced with renewable electricity could reduce biodiversity impacts over 96 % while carbon footprint seems to be 6.5 % higher when compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene.
KW - Biodiversity
KW - CO-to-X
KW - Carbon footprint
KW - Land use
KW - Life cycle assessment
KW - Power-to-X
KW - Renewable electricity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153497718&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163628
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163628
M3 - Artículo en revista científica indexada
C2 - 37084904
AN - SCOPUS:85153497718
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 882
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 163628
ER -