Life cycle assessment (LCA) of end‐of‐life dairy products (EoL‐DPs) valorization via anaerobic co‐digestion with agro‐industrial wastes for biogas production (original) (raw)

BACKGROUNDThe aim of the present study was to assess the environmental impacts of end‐of‐life dairy products (EoL‐DPs) management via their co‐treatment with agro‐industrial wastes (AgW) in a centralized biogas facility located in Cyprus using a gate‐to‐gate life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. Two different scenarios were examined under the framework of this project. In the first one, co‐treatment of EoL‐DPs with various AgW in a 20:80 (w/w) ratio was evaluated in a one‐stage mesophilic anaerobic digestion (AD) process. In the second scenario, the same amount of EoL‐DPs were acidified before methanogenesis with AgW in order to improve biogas production.RESULTSPrior acidification of EoL‐DPs showed a better environmental performance compared with the results obtained upon direct co‐digestion in a mesophilic digester, having a total impact of 52.44 Pt against 57.13 Pt respectively. Biogas production upon acidification, and therefore energy yield, was higher, reaching up to 22.88 m3 C...