ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Life Cycle Analysis of Rapeseed Oil Butyl
Esters Produced from Waste
and Pure Rapeseed Oil
Egle Sendzikiene, Violeta Makareviciene, Irina Kazanceva
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Laboratory of Chemical and Biochemical Research for Environmental Technology,
Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu 11, Akademija, LT-53361, Kaunas, Lithuania
Submission date: 2017-05-11
Final revision date: 2017-06-27
Acceptance date: 2017-07-11
Online publication date: 2018-01-15
Publication date: 2018-01-26
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2018;27(2):829-837
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ABSTRACT
We compared the life cycle of rapeseed oil butyl esters (RBEs) made from waste rapeseed oil with
that of RBEs made from conventional rapeseed oil. Chemical and biotechnological methods of production
are considered. Sodium hydroxide was chosen as a catalyst for the chemical production method; for
biotechnological production, the lipase lipozyme RM IM was chosen. The life cycle assessment, which
was performed using the CML-IA baseline V 3.02/EU 25 method (SimaPro software), shows that using
waste oil has a positive effect on all impact categories with the application of either biotechnological or
chemical production methods. The use of RBEs from waste oil (using the biotechnological production
method) led to a reduction of the following environmental impacts (compared with fossil fuel impacts):
abiotic depletion up to 79.1%, acidification 38.8%, eutrophication 18.33%, global warming 77%, ozone
layer depletion 90.12%, human toxicity 71.8%, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity 9.01%, marine water
aquatic ecotoxicity 56.9%, terrestrial ecotoxicity 0.191% (according to our results the impact of diesel on
terrestrial ecotoxicity was small), and photochemical oxidation 36.8%.