Análise comparativa de métodos tradicionais e termoeconômicos de alocação de encargos ambientais na avaliação do ciclo de vida de uma biorrefinaria de palma de azeite

Abstract

A comparative analysis between the traditional methods of allocation of environmental impacts addressed since the LCA analysis was performed: system expansion, traditional allocation coefficients (mass flow, economic, energetic, exergetic) and the coefficient set from the termoeconomia (exergetic cost), with the aim of analyzing the influence of each methods on the attribution of potential environmental impacts associated to the products generated in a palm oil biorefinery. It was found that the proposed allocation coefficient based on the thermoeconomy is adequate to be used in the distribution of environmental impacts in multiproducts systems that involve the generation of energetic and non-energetic products, integrating thermodynamic criteria in the ACV methodology taking into account the irreversibilities of the processes to carry out the attribution of the impacts. In the same way, a comparative analysis of the environmental performance evaluation of the biorefinery case study using the LCA methodology and the exergoenvironmental approach of thermoeconomy was carried out, observing that the results obtained do not present significant differences when the irreversibilities of the production processes do not are significant and that when differences are present in the results, they are reduced according to the coefficients of allocation of environmental charges based on thermoeconomic criteria (exergic costs associated to the flows) to be considered in the LCA methodology.