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Life cycle impacts of ethanol production from spruce wood chips under high-gravity conditions

Overview of attention for article published in Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, March 2016
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Title
Life cycle impacts of ethanol production from spruce wood chips under high-gravity conditions
Published in
Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, March 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13068-016-0468-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Matty Janssen, Charilaos Xiros, Anne-Marie Tillman

Abstract

Development of more sustainable biofuel production processes is ongoing, and technology to run these processes at a high dry matter content, also called high-gravity conditions, is one option. This paper presents the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) of such a technology currently in development for the production of bio-ethanol from spruce wood chips. The cradle-to-gate LCA used lab results from a set of 30 experiments (or process configurations) in which the main process variable was the detoxification strategy applied to the pretreated feedstock material. The results of the assessment show that a process configuration, in which washing of the pretreated slurry is the detoxification strategy, leads to the lowest environmental impact of the process. Enzyme production and use are the main contributors to the environmental impact in all process configurations, and strategies to significantly reduce this contribution are enzyme recycling and on-site enzyme production. Furthermore, a strong linear correlation between the ethanol yield of a configuration and its environmental impact is demonstrated, and the selected environmental impacts show a very strong cross-correlation ([Formula: see text] in all cases) which may be used to reduce the number of impact categories considered from four to one (in this case, global warming potential). Lastly, a comparison with results of an LCA of ethanol production under high-gravity conditions using wheat straw shows that the environmental performance does not significantly differ when using spruce wood chips. For this comparison, it is shown that eutrophication potential also needs to be considered due to the fertilizer use in wheat cultivation. The LCA points out the environmental hotspots in the ethanol production process, and thus provides input to the further development of the high-gravity technology. Reducing the number of impact categories based only on cross-correlations should be done with caution. Knowledge of the analyzed system provides further input to the choice of impact categories.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 77 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Switzerland 1 1%
Unknown 76 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 17 22%
Researcher 15 19%
Student > Master 11 14%
Professor > Associate Professor 5 6%
Student > Bachelor 4 5%
Other 10 13%
Unknown 15 19%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Environmental Science 13 17%
Engineering 11 14%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 8 10%
Chemical Engineering 8 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 5%
Other 8 10%
Unknown 25 32%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 March 2016.
All research outputs
#16,046,765
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts
#881
of 1,578 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#169,511
of 313,486 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts
#23
of 52 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 34th percentile – i.e., 34% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,578 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.9. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 313,486 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 52 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its contemporaries.