The SustaiNext project is celebrating the publication of its first scientific paper, entitled ‘SUSTAINEXT: Validating a Zero-Waste, Dynamic, Multivalorisation Route Biorefinery for Plant Extracts’, in the research journal World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology.
This paper, the result of months of work by our partner ECODESIGN company GmbH, explains the methodological approach to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the SustaiNext project, which aims to support the sustainable expansion of this flagship project.
Our colleagues at ECODESIGN company GmbH collected reliable data on agricultural and process inputs (e.g., water, fertilisers, energy, solvents, and auxiliary materials) and outputs (main products, co-products, and other secondary flows).
This enabled them, on the one hand, to determine that the concentration of extracts and the Feedstock Suitability Index (FSI) make a difference in terms of environmental impact. And, on the other hand, to model different allocation methods for multi-output processes to find that polyphenol content-based and economic-based allocations give the most meaningful results.
This first scientific paper was only made possible thanks to the close collaboration between the different project partners and the authors, led by Adriana Díaz Triana. Their shared task of collecting, transferring and analysing the data has really been worth it!
