Life Cycle Assessment of aPHA Production

Abstract

The global production of plastic has been increasing steadily in recent years, with plastic packaging accounting for approximately 39% of the total. Plastics used for packaging are fossil-fuel-based and thus have severe environmental impacts. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are considered alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics. Amorphous PHAs (aPHAs), are used in a wide range of applications owing to their rubber-like properties and remarkable fresh-water and ocean biodegradability. However, few studies have performed environmental impact assessments on aPHAs. Therefore, this study performed a life cycle assessment (LCA) based on site-specific and actual aPHA production data. The results of key impact categories and a single score for the three end points of aPHA production provided comprehensive insights into the environmental sustainability of aPHAs. In addition, parametric analysis (PA) was performed to analyze the possibility of increasing the sustainability of the aPHA production process. The global warming potential (GWP) of aPHA production using sugarcane ranged from 0.86 to 1.59 kg CO2 equiv/kg aPHA, while that of corn grains ranged from 0.01 to 1.96 kg CO2 equiv/kg aPHA. Thus, in terms of its environmental impact, the findings suggest that aPHA, as a biobased and biodegradable plastic, shows improved performance compared to fossil fuel-based plastics.