Life cycle analysis of biogas production from anaerobic digestion of palm oil mill effluent
Abstract This study aims to evaluate the cradle to gate life cycle environmental performance of biogas production by the anaerobic digestion (AD) of POME. The life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed using the ReCiPe 2016 method and SimaPro 8.5 software. This study emphasizes on global warming (GWP) land use change (LUC) and water consumption (WCP) due to their significant contributions. It was found that the total characterization factor for human health damage by WCP and GWP ranges from 2.49 x 10 8 to 3.36 x 10 3 DALY per m 3 of consumption and 1.45 x 10 5 to 1.42 x 10 3 DALY per kg of emission, respectively. The total characterization factor for ecosystem damage by WCP, LUC, and GWP ranges from 6.76 x 10 15 to 2.04 x 10 5 PDF*m 2 *yr*m 3 4.92 x 10 8 to 4.78 x 10 6 PDF*m 2 *yr*m 2 and 1.19 x 10 12 to 4.28 x 10 6 PDF*m 2 *yr*kg 1 respectively. It can be concluded that waste derived biogas is a promising technology that can be used to meet the national goals for a sustainable renewable energy. This study can be a starting point to highlight the sustainability of biogas production for a proper waste management and energy recovery in Malaysia context.