1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China 2. Innovation Centre for Environment and Resources, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620, China 3. Center of Hydrogen Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China 4. Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai 200092, China
● Greenhouse gas mitigation by biomass-based CO2 utilization with a Fe cycle system.
● The system including hydrothermal CO2 reduction with Fe and Fe recovery by biomass.
● The reduction potential quantified by experiments, simulations, and an ex-ante LCA.
● The greatest GHG reduction potential is −34.03 kg CO2-eq/kg absorbed CO2.
● Ex-ante LCA supports process optimization to maximize GHG reduction potential.
CO2 utilization becomes a promising solution for reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Biomass-based CO2 utilization (BCU) even has the potential to generate negative emissions, but the corresponding quantitative evaluation is limited. Herein, the biomass-based CO2 utilization with an iron cycle (BCU-Fe) system, which converts CO2 into formate by Fe under hydrothermal conditions and recovers Fe with biomass-derived glycerin, was investigated. The GHG reduction potential under various process designs was quantified by a multidisciplinary method, including experiments, simulations, and an ex-ante life-cycle assessment. The results reveal that the BCU-Fe system could bring considerable GHG emission reduction. Significantly, the lowest value is −34.03 kg CO2-eq/kg absorbed CO2 (−2.44 kg CO2-eq/kg circulated Fe) with the optimal yield of formate (66%) and Fe (80%). The proposed ex-ante evaluation approach not only reveals the benefits of mitigating climate change by applying the BCU-Fe system, but also serves as a generic tool to guide the industrialization of emerging carbon-neutral technologies.
Up-scaled experiment data based on (Duo et al., 2016)
Produced HCOONa
Produced H2
Fe consumption
Linked with BR process
Produced Fe3O4
BR
Electricity consumption
Aspen Plus simulation
Ecoinvent database (Table S4)
H2SO4 consumption
Stoichiometric calculation
Glycerin consumption
Up-scaled experiment data based on this study
NaOH consumption
Produced LA
Fe3O4 consumption
Linked with HR process
Produced Fe
Tab.1
Fig.3
Fig.4
Fig.5
Fig.6
Fig.7
Fig.8
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