Environmental impacts assessment of biodiesel production from jatropha and WCO

Abstract

Viet Nam has advantaged conditions to produce renewable energy from agriculture products and agriculture waste. Biodiesel that is produced from renewable resources has been rising as a promising candidate to replace conventional energy in recent decades. However, developing biodiesel from agricultural product may affect food security significantly. Therefore, Jatropha that is inedible and wasted-cooking-oil (WCO) could be considered to produce biodiesel in order to diversify the biodiesel sources. One of the most important aims of using biodiesel to replace fossil diesel is to reduce environmental impacts, particularly impact on Climate Change. It is necessary to analyze the environmental performance of biodiesel through the entire life cycle. In this paper, life cycle assessment of biodiesel production and use was applied to measure the environmental performance of biodiesel produced from Jatropha oil and WCO under Viet Nam conditions. Some main emissions, such as CO₂, NOₓ. PM, CH₄... VOC and land use, were computed through a cradle-to-grave analysis. The result shows that when using Jatropha biodiesel to replace diesel, global warming potential (GWP) and photochemical oxidant formation potential (POFP) could be improved, but some other impacts, such as acidification potential (AP) and eutrophication potential (FP), could tend to increase. The environmental impacts of WCO biodiesel are all reduced in comparison with fossil diesel.