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Life cycle assessment of coupling household biogas production to agricultural industry: A case study of biogas-linked persimmon cultivation and processing system

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  • Chen, Bin
  • Chen, Shaoqing

Abstract

Biogas plant construction has been boosted in rural China not only due to the immediate merit from biogas production but also the succeeding benefit from by-product utilization in agro-industry, both of which are significant strategies to address energy shortage and global warming issues. However, little work has been done to evaluate the coupling of biogas projects to traditional agrosystems from a life-cycle perspective, which is most important in process and system optimization in different senses. By taking persimmon cultivation and processing with supports from a household biogas plant as a case study, this study conducts a life cycle assessment of coupling biogas production to agro-industry in terms of energy, environmental and economic performance. The results suggest that each production stage following the biogas/digestate utilization chain (biogas operation-persimmon cultivation-product processing) is beneficial across all three aspects. However, a tradeoff only exists in utilizing digestate as top-dressing and employing biogas utilization as engine fuel, while biogas application in fresh-keeping and digestate reuse as base fertilizer fails to increase either energy production or greenhouse gas mitigation. The coupled system can be hopefully optimized through increasing fermentation efficiency and joint operation of biogas digesters.

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  • Chen, Bin & Chen, Shaoqing, 2013. "Life cycle assessment of coupling household biogas production to agricultural industry: A case study of biogas-linked persimmon cultivation and processing system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 707-716.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:62:y:2013:i:c:p:707-716
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.07.084
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    7. Chen, Shaoqing & Chen, Bin, 2014. "Energy efficiency and sustainability of complex biogas systems: A 3-level emergetic evaluation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 151-163.
    8. Robert Czubaszek & Agnieszka Wysocka-Czubaszek & Piotr Banaszuk, 2020. "GHG Emissions and Efficiency of Energy Generation through Anaerobic Fermentation of Wetland Biomass," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-25, December.
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