ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Life Cycle Assessment of Different Sorbents
at Early Stage
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1
Shanxi University, No. 92 Wucheng Road, Xiaodian District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
2
Taiyuan Institute of Technology, No. 31 Xinlan Road, Jiancaoping District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
3
Taiyuan University of Technology, No. 79 West Yingze ST, Wanbailing District, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
Submission date: 2021-09-22
Acceptance date: 2021-11-30
Online publication date: 2022-04-12
Publication date: 2022-05-05
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2022;31(3):2973-2986
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ABSTRACT
Climate change caused by man-made carbon-dioxide emissions has become a global consensus.
The studies of technologies for CO2 capture have received continuous attention over the past few
decades. In our lab, we have developed different biomass sorbents in previous studies, compared
to other biomass sorbents, which have more desirable performance for CO2 uptake. However,
the application of these sorbents is still an emerging technology at the early stages of development. In order
to optimize experimental design or develop large-scale production in the future, life cycle assessment
has been employed to assess the environmental impacts of the sorbents prepared by different raw
materials and conditions. According to the primary analysis on adsorption capacity and environmental
benefits, five CO2 uptake sorbents which synthesized by glucose or wheat flour as the biomass source
of carbon were selected in this study. The result shows that, from the environmental perspective,
the 700-PC is the best CO2 uptake sorbent in five sorbents at ambient pressure, and the 800-N-PC
is the best CO2 uptake sorbent at high pressure. For the source of the environmental burdens, the
electricity production is the largest environmental burden in all sorbents, but it has obvious laboratory
features and is easy to decreased with the proceeding of industrialization. The environmental burden
of glucose is bigger than that of wheat flour. The environmental burden of sodium bicarbonate is lower
than that of potassium hydroxide. The environmental benefit of N-doping is different in different
conditions, at the ambient pressure, the sorbent without N-doping is better than that with N-doping, but
it is opposite at high press. Additive of cobalt has great environmental benefits for sorbents. Meanwhile,
we also found that some factors that have great impacts on environment have not been studied before.
Hence, in order to get the best environmental friendship sorbents, the further research can be conducted
on these issues.