Life Cycle Assessment of various biorefinery approaches for the valorisation of almond shells

In the near future, sustainable and efficient biorefineries would be essential for production of commodity chemicals high-added value compounds. Therefore, in this work, six scenarios differing on delignification steps cellulose conversion routes were assessed via Life Cycle Assessment methodology order to study environmental impacts derived from an abundant agricultural residue (almond shells) into high added-value products select most suitable one large-scale valorisation. The assessments conducted employing experimental results processing them by SimaPro software. main conclusion achieved suggested that enzymatic hydrolysis solid any step entailed highest had relative contribution all studied impact categories with a maximum 74%, which was ascribed Scenario 5. It also concluded organosolv process affected overall more negatively than alkaline treatment having bigger especially abiotic depletion (ADP) photochemical oxidation (POP) categories. Finally, it can stated best route valorising almond shell biorefinery facility is composed autohydrolysis (common every scenario), delignification, bleaching acid obtaining oligosaccharides, lignin nanocrystals as products.