Executive Summary

This life cycle assessment (LCA) study compares Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) produced from renewable source molasses with MEG produced from petroleum route. The assessment is based on data collected at India Glycols Limited, Kashipur, India henceforth referred to as IGL. The MEG produced from Molasses will henceforth be referred to as Bio-MEG while MEG produced from petroleum will henceforth be referred to as conventional MEG.

Goal and scope The Present study evaluates and compares Life Cycle Assessment & GHG Accounting of Bio-MEG and conventional MEG. The methodology of the study is based on ISO 14044-2006 standards. The input material for Bio-MEG will be Ethanol obtained from sugarcane and input material for conventional MEG will be Ethylene Oxide obtained from crude oil. The study evaluates all relevant processes affected by the production. This includes agricultural cultivation of sugarcane as well as excavation of crude oil. The functional unit in this study has been taken as 1 ton of MEG. Scope of BIO-MEG study will start from cultivation of Sugar cane, transportation of sugarcane to sugar plant, production of molasses, production of ethanol and finally production of BIO - MEG. Scope of conventional MEG will start from crude oil extraction, ethylene oxide production and finally conventional MEG production. The comparison will be made between LCA study of Bio-MEG produced at IGL and LCA study of conventional MEG produced in India, US and Europe with process and data taken from India and for US & EU process details taken from ecoinvent & USLCI available in SimaPro against various impacts categories. This study will be Cradle to Gate Study.

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Impact categories and methods

The study addresses the following environmental impact categories: Global warming potential or GHG, resource depletion, carcinogenic effect, acidification, nutrient enrichment (eutrophication), photochemical ozone formation etc. There is no India specific impact assessment method available. Also characterization and normalization factors are not available. Default characterization factors from Ecoindicator99 and IPCC 2007 GWP100a are applied and the system modeling is performed in SimaPro 7.2.4 (LCA software tool).In this study we have used hierarchist perspective of EcoIndicator99 as the weights given to human health and ecosystem quality and resources are in line with the importance given to them in India. Default normalisation as shown below has been used in this study. Normalisation 1.54E-02 5.13E+03 8.41E+03 Weights 400 400 200

Human Health Ecosystem Quality Resources

Inventory analysis
Life cycle assessment studies are in its infancy in India. There is no India specific database available for most of the materials. It was a strenuous and difficult task to collect data for sugarcane cultivation, molasses production, MEG production, Diesel and Naptha production etc. Questionnaires, interactions with industry experts, study of published report and research papers on similar topics, economic surveys etc were used as data collection methodologies. Data gaps were filled from SimaPro databases. The study handles allocation issues by mass-economic system and mass allocation.

Results
The results obtained are summarized in the following tables and figures: The total GHG emitted in ton CO2 eq. from major processes for the production of one ton of Bio-MEG calculated as per IPCC 2007 100a is shown in table 1 below. Bio-Ethanol from molasses is the biggest contributor while oxygen, electricity and steam are other three major contributors. Total GHG emitted in ton CO2 eq. from one ton of Bio-MEG production is 1331.11 kgs.

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Table:1

Processes which are major GHG contributors to 1 ton Bio-MEG production from Molasses expressed in kg. CO2 eq.

Bio-Ethanol from Molasses 545

Oxygen, liquid production 53.2

Electricity, high voltage, production 288

Steam production from waste and coal 244

The net GHG savings are ~597 kg CO2 eq. per ton Bio-MEG production in comparison to conventional MEG production in India. The difference is very high also when Indian Bio-MEG production process is compared with MEG - US and MEG - Europe as shown in figure1. The US and EU processes were taken from USLCI and ecoinvent databases respectively. European MEG is approximately 20% higher than Bio-MEG from IGL. Since USLCI has no process detail for MEG it was created by editing MEG process from ecoinvent and ethylene oxide process from USLCI was used in place of ethylene oxide from ecoinvent to create. This was necessary to make the comparison among similar products. However, MEG process for US had electricity and other details from Europe taken from ecoinvent. It is assumed that this editing will not affect the results much. MEG process from US is approximately 31% higher than Bio-MEG from IGL. These processes are available in SimaPro and details were taken from ecoinvent report no-8.
Figure1

Comparision as per IPCC 2007

2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 Kg CO2 eq. 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1928.79 1605.75 1331.11 1747.14

Bio-MEG

MEG Europe

MEG - US

MEG - India

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Eco-Indicator 99 is an impact assessment method for calculating various impacts like carcinogens, land use, fossil fuel, minerals etc. Seen from the life cycle perspective, the major contributors to various impacts come from Bio-ethanol from molasses, Oxygen liquid production, Electricity high voltage production and steam production as shown in table 2.
Table:2

Major impacts due to different processes in Bio-MEG production as per Eco Indicator 99 Oxygen, liquid production 1.83E-05 4.14E-08 6.53E-05 1.11E-05 6.73E-08 1.75E-09 9.79919 1.458618 0.413336 0.182018 24.75783 Electricity, high voltage, production 9.89E-05 2.24E-07 0.000354 6.02E-05 3.65E-07 9.49E-09 53.06881 7.89934 2.238477 0.985741 134.0793 Steam production from waste and coal 4.59E-05 4.41E-07 0.000378 4.98E-05 2.77E-07 1.14E-08 42.05201 15.53138 13.00039 4.68023 397.1831

Impact category Carcinogens Resp. organics Resp. inorganics Climate change Radiation Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification/ Eutrophication Land use Minerals Fossil fuels

Unit DALY DALY DALY DALY DALY DALY PAF*m2yr PDF*m2yr PDF*m2yr MJ surplus MJ surplus

Total 0.000956 2.34E-06 0.004085 0.000279 2.72E-06 1.25E-07 310.367 59.94128 24.64406 23.04717 1600.502

Bio-Ethanol from Molasses 0.000791 1.56E-06 0.003257 0.000116 1.83E-06 9.93E-08 200.4195 33.67852 8.774535 15.42853 618.723

The normalized impacts are shown in figure2. In this study SimaPros default value for normalization has been taken. There has not been any study which has determined or calculated India specific normalization and characterization factors. This is the reason for use of default value of SimaPro. A close scrutiny of the figure 2 and table 2 establish that Respiratory inorganics has maximum impacts in Bio-MEG production Fossil fuels and Carcinogens are other two major impacts Climate change is 4th in overall severity in Bio-MEG production. The biggest contributor to Carcinogens and Respiratory inorganics is Bio-Ethanol from molasses which finally leads to sugarcane cultivation.

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Figure 2 : Normalised impacts due to different processes in Bio-MEG production as per Eco Indicator99

0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 Carcinogens Resp. organi cs Resp. inorga nics Climate change Radiation Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification / Eutrophicat Land use Minerals Fossil fuels

Water, completely softened, at plant/RER U Process water, ion exchange, production mix, at plant, from surface water RER S Oxygen, liquid, at plant/ India U Potassium carbonate, at plant/GLO U Sulphuric acid, liquid, at plant/RER U Calcium borates, at plant/TR U Electricity, high voltage, production India, at grid/India U Steam production from waste and coal at Plant/India U Heat, from resid. heating systems from NG, consumption mix, at consumer, temperature of 55C EU-27 S Heat, from resid. heating systems from NG, consumption mix, at consumer, temperature of 55C EU-27 S Analysing 1 ton 'Bio-MEG'; Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Normalisation

The results were mixed when Bio-MEG was compared with Conventional MEG produced in India, Europe and US per Eco-Indicator 99 method. Bio-MEG has highest impacts in land use, carcinogens, acidification and respiratory inorganics categories. These are due to sugarcane cultivation, leftovers in the sugarcane field etc. However, Bio-MEG fares better in other impact categories as shown below in table 3. Green colour shows Bio-MEG has least impacts while red colour shows Bio-MEG has highest impacts. In Ecotoxicity Bio-MEG is better than Conventional MEG produced in India.

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Table:3

Single score Comparison as per Eco-Indicator 99 among Bio-MEG and MEG from Europe, US & India
Impact category Total Carcinogens Resp. organics Resp. inorganics Climate change Radiation Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification/ Eutrophication Land use Minerals Fossil fuels Unit Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Bio-MEG 170.96 18.67 0.05 79.77 5.44 0.05 0.00 2.42 4.68 1.92 0.82 57.14 MEG-Europe 232.57 1.51 0.05 13.76 6.48 0.17 0.00 2.32 1.45 0.80 3.06 202.98 MEG-US 266.74 2.21 0.36 27.45 6.96 0.08 0.00 1.46 2.53 0.41 1.75 223.53 MEG-India 297.84 6.01 0.11 36.63 7.39 0.09 0.01 4.87 3.44 1.89 3.18 234.22

Single score results, shown in figure 3, as per EcoIndicator99 shows that overall impact of Bio-MEG is lowest. It also shows impact of MEG produced in India is higher than that of MEG produced in US and Europe. It is to be noted that ethylene glycol and MEG are same products.
Figure3- Single score results as per Eco-Indicator 99 for Bio-MEG and conventional MEGs

280 260 240 220 200 180 160

Pt
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Bio-MEG Carcinogens Ozone layer Fossil fuels Ethylene glycol, at plant/RER U Resp. organics Ecotoxicity Ethylene glycol, at plant/US U Climate change Land use Ethylene glycol, at plant/India U Radiation Minerals

Resp. inorganics Acidification/ Eutrophication

Comparing 1 ton 'Bio-MEG', 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/RER U', 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/US U' and 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/India U'; Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Single score

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