Critical review on life cycle assessment of bio-based platform molecules: sustainability metrics of novel technologies

Bio-based platform chemicals are a set of compounds identified as key for biorefineries development [1]. Their penetration into the current market would sustain the shifting towards a more sustainable circular bioeconomy. Specifically, their biological origin can reduce both petroleum dependency and waste landfilling. Although this constitutes a promising scenario, incumbent technologies are hampered by intrinsic difficulties mainly related to upstream processing and the complex biomass composition. In this sense, life cycle assessment (LCA) is a fundamental tool to identify hotspots and ensure environmental improvements against conventional petroleum-based processes. Even though the number of LCAs published on biochemicals has rapidly grown, comparison between them is still limited due to the heterogeneous methodological choices applied Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract