Avaliação ambiental de bioprodutos e propostas de biorrefinaria, a partir dos resíduos da manga

Abstract

Mango is one of the main fruits produced in Brazil, with a production of 1 million tons per year, its market is mostly national, where it can be found natural or processed industrially as whole juice, or pulp. However, industrial fruit processing is responsible for the generation of large volumes of waste. Faced with this problem, researchers found that mango co-products (peel and stone) can be extracted pectin and phenolic compounds (peel); lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose (coat); and starch, fat and phenolic compounds (kernel). Processes capable of extracting these products are being developed and it is important to consider from the outset of the project environmental criteria to develop environmentally friendly products. In this sense, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) contributes to this purpose, because it allows to identify the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of the products under study. Thus, the purpose of this study was to choose the extraction processes with the lowest environmental impact and, subsequently, to evaluate the integrated extraction of these products. The first part of this work consisted in comparing reference processes with other alternatives or with an improvement scenario to choose the process with the lowest impact. In turn, the second part considered the routes identified in the previous step with the lowest environmental impact, in order to set up a system capable of extracting all bioproducts from mango co-products or combinations thereof. The recommendations of ISO 14040 and 14044 (2006) were adopted. The scope of the study is from cradle to gate; The process inventory was assembled after standardization for 1 month of extraction; The functional unit considered was 1g (part I) and 1 US $ (part II). The impact assessment methods used were ILCD Midpoint 2011 (climate change, acidification, freshwater and marine eutrophication, ecotoxicity, carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic human toxicity) and AWARE (water scarcity). After calculating the environmental impacts, the uncertainty analysis was performed by the Monte Carlo method. In part I, the results showed that the processes with the lowest impact were: i) CF extraction by ESP; ii) pectin extraction by Ultrasound; iii) Acetoolv lignin extraction using alternative equipment; iv) acetosolv extraction of cellulose; v) isolated extraction of starch. Where the main element responsible for the environmental impact was the production of electricity in all processes. In the second part, the results showed that the scenario with the best environmental performance was the one that benefited the mango peel, since it presented a better relationship between the revenue obtained and the level of complexity of the biorefinery.