SIPL, India 7

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 Weights

Human Health 1.54E-02 400

Ecosystem Quality 5.13E+03 400

Resources 8.41E+03 200

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

Oxygen, liquid production

Electricity, high voltage, production

Steam production from waste and coal

545 53.2 288 244

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

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

Bio-MEG MEG - Europe

MEG - US MEG - India

1331.11

1605.75 1747.14

1928.79

Kg CO2 eq.

Comparision as per IPCC 2007

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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

Impact category Unit Total

Bio-Ethanol from Molasses

Oxygen, liquid

production

Electricity, high voltage, production

Steam production from waste and coal

Carcinogens DALY 0.000956 0.000791 1.83E-05 9.89E-05 4.59E-05

Resp. organics DALY 2.34E-06 1.56E-06 4.14E-08 2.24E-07 4.41E-07

Resp. inorganics DALY 0.004085 0.003257 6.53E-05 0.000354 0.000378

Climate change DALY 0.000279 0.000116 1.11E-05 6.02E-05 4.98E-05

Radiation DALY 2.72E-06 1.83E-06 6.73E-08 3.65E-07 2.77E-07

Ozone layer DALY 1.25E-07 9.93E-08 1.75E-09 9.49E-09 1.14E-08

Ecotoxicity PAF*m2yr 310.367 200.4195 9.79919 53.06881 42.05201

Acidification/ Eutrophication PDF*m2yr 59.94128 33.67852 1.458618 7.89934 15.53138

Land use PDF*m2yr 24.64406 8.774535 0.413336 2.238477 13.00039

Minerals MJ surplus 23.04717 15.42853 0.182018 0.985741 4.68023

Fossil fuels MJ surplus 1600.502 618.723 24.75783 134.0793 397.1831

The normalized impacts are shown in figure2. In this study SimaPro’s 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

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.

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Normalisation

Analysing 1 ton 'Bio-MEG';

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 55°C EU-27 S

Heat, from resid. heating systems from NG, consumption mix, at consumer, temperature of 55°C EU-27 S

Carcinogens Resp. organi

cs

Resp. inorga

nics

Climate

change

Radiation Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification

/ Eutrophicat

Land use Minerals Fossil fuels

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

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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 Unit Bio-MEG MEG-Europe MEG-US MEG-India

Total Pt 170.96 232.57 266.74 297.84

Carcinogens Pt 18.67 1.51 2.21 6.01

Resp. organics Pt 0.05 0.05 0.36 0.11

Resp. inorganics Pt 79.77 13.76 27.45 36.63

Climate change Pt 5.44 6.48 6.96 7.39

Radiation Pt 0.05 0.17 0.08 0.09

Ozone layer Pt 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01

Ecotoxicity Pt 2.42 2.32 1.46 4.87

Acidification/ Eutrophication Pt 4.68 1.45 2.53 3.44

Land use Pt 1.92 0.80 0.41 1.89

Minerals Pt 0.82 3.06 1.75 3.18

Fossil fuels Pt 57.14 202.98 223.53 234.22

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

Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Single score

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';

Carcinogens Resp. organics Resp. inorganics Climate change Radiation

Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification/ Eutrophication Land use Minerals

Fossil fuels

Bio-MEG Ethylene glycol, at plant/RER U Ethylene glycol, at plant/US U Ethylene glycol, at plant/India U

Pt

280

260

240

220

200

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0