Environmental and economic feasibility study of flocculation process as a treatment of wastewater in ethanol production

Bio-based fuels are the most promising and ecological alternatives to fossil fuels. Sustainable technologies are being developed and applied to biofuel production in order to minimize the costs and the environmental impacts of the system. Wastes produced from ethanol plant have been concerned ethanol producers and environmental protectors due to the negative environmental impacts caused. Challenges are presented on the treatment of wastewater from an ethanol biorefinery. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of flocculation process as a treatment for wastewater in substitution of the evaporation process in an ethanol plant by analyzing the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA)