Author
Listed:
- Aarsha Surendren
(School of Engineering, Thornbrough Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada)
- Yusra Hasan
(School of Engineering, Thornbrough Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada)
- Amar K. Mohanty
(School of Engineering, Thornbrough Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada)
- Bassim Abbassi
(School of Engineering, Thornbrough Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada)
- Manjusri Misra
(School of Engineering, Thornbrough Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada)
Abstract
Starch has overtaken the bioplastic market in developing thermoplastic starch-based blends and composite systems owing to its biodegradability and sustainability. Thermoplastic starch (TPS) development is mostly a two-stage process involving plasticizing starch and blending plasticized starch with a polymer. Most of the research focuses on improving the properties of the blend system through different methodologies, including various plasticizers and co-plasticizers. However, limited studies have analyzed the environmental effects of plasticizers or co-plasticizers and their processing. Thus, in this research, the environmental impact of starch plasticization processes performed by co-plasticization (glycerol–urea, glycerol–citric acid, and glycerol–succinic anhydride) and by conventional glycerol-based plasticization is compared through life cycle assessment (LCA). The results showed that glycerol–citric acid- and glycerol–succinic anhydride-based co-plasticization had a comparable environmental impact to traditional glycerol-based plasticization. In contrast, the glycerol–urea-based co-plasticization process exhibited the highest effect on the environment. Furthermore, to reduce the environmental impact, a sensitivity analysis of the plasticization processes was conducted by changing the energy aspect of the processes through quantitative and qualitative approaches. The qualitative approach significantly reduced major impact categories such as global warming, carcinogens, ecotoxicity, and fossil fuel depletion.
Suggested Citation
Aarsha Surendren & Yusra Hasan & Amar K. Mohanty & Bassim Abbassi & Manjusri Misra, 2024.
"Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment on Corn Starch Plasticization and Co-Plasticization Processes,"
Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-13, August.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:17:p:7406-:d:1465604
Download full text from publisher
References listed on IDEAS
- Broeren, Martijn L.M. & Kuling, Lody & Worrell, Ernst & Shen, Li, 2017.
"Environmental impact assessment of six starch plastics focusing on wastewater-derived starch and additives,"
Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 246-255.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:17:p:7406-:d:1465604. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.