กันต์ พรหมเมตตา. Life Cycle Assessment of Biodiesel from Jatropha. Master's Degree(Chemical Engineering). King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, 2005.
Abstract:
Biodiesel production from jatropha in Thailand was studied in this research which focused on 3 parts; process
design, economic feasibility and environmental impact analysis. This plant has been designed to produce biodiesel from
jatropha oil by alkali catalyzed based transesterification technology. Two alkali based catalyses; sodium hydroxide and
potassium hydroxide, were studied. The process design was performed with ASPEN PLUS version 2004.1 and the
economic feasibility by ASPEN Icarus Process Evaluator. Following that the life cycle assessment by ISO 14000 was
studie Jatropha oil was reacted with methanol and alkali catalyst in 2 stages reactor that gave biodiesel and glycerol
as products. Unreacted methanol was recovered then alkali base was removed by neutralizing with sulfuric acid that gave
alkali salt. Biodiesel product was purified in order to get 99.7 percent of biodiesel and 93 percent of glycerol. The middle
reference price of jatropha for appropriated investment included 30-33 percent of IRR, 6.3-6.8 years for payout and 6.7 7.7
million US$ for NPV at 20th year. At the high reference price of jatropha seed, sensitivity analyzed, the economic feasibility
was lower including that 18.6-20.3 percent of IRR, more than 12 years for payout and only 1.6-2.4 million US$ of NPV at 20th
year. This case was reasonable and possible found in Thailand market. The life cycle assessment of biodiesel production covered
the overall environmental impact categories with single score. It indicates that biodiesel (94.6 mPt) was better than diesel (232 mPt).
When described in the main categories, the resources damage from biodiesel was 7.46 mPt and diesel was 131 mPt. The human
health damage that biodiesel was 70.3 mPt and diesel was 80 mPt and the ecosystem quality damage from biodiesel was 16.9 mPt
and diesel was 20.5 mPt. For process by potassium hydroxide, case2 (15.6 Pt) was better than by sodium hydroxide, case1 (15.7 Pt).
Considering to the human health impact, case1 (3.67 Pt) had affect more than case2 (3.27 Pt) because of detected carcinogenic s
ubstances in biodiesel purification stage, from the usage and the production of sodium hydroxide. The resources depletion, case
2 (11.8 Pt) had more damaged than case1 (11.5 Pt) because of large quantity of energy used in transesterification stage. Finally,
the environmental safety goodness of biodiesel was charged to monetary which available at 0.2-0.5 US$/liter for subsidization the
operation cost.