CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Agricultural resources for energy purposes increased sharply in recent years. In Argentina, thelegislation has imposed, like in other countries, the use of biofuels in blend with gasoline. The aimof this work is the identification of the life cycle points critical to the total environmental impact ofanhydrous ethanol production in the Province of Santa Fe, which heads the corn yields in thecountry. A ―cradle to gate‖ analysis taking into account a valorization of co-products isperformed. All the activities from the extraction of raw materials (farming subsystem ? S1) toethanol production (refinery subsystem- S2) are included, taking into account the use of DDGs asanimal feed. An LCA study of corn-based ethanol corresponds to a country-specific approach isprovided. As the global process is divided into two subsystems, two functional units are chosen: 1kg of corn for S1 and 1 Mj of anhydrous ethanol for S2.Life Cycle assessment (LCA) is the methodology chosen through two LCIA methods:Eco-indicator99 and Recipe 2008. Corn production, supplied energy in biorefinery subsystem and valorizationof DDGs are the most relevant processes. Sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate first theinfluence of the perspectives of the methods (hierarchical, egalitarian and individualist), andsecond the effects of deforestation, corn yield, transportation and energy matrix.The most relevantprocessesremain the same in three perspectives for both methods. It was observed a greatenvironmental impact considering deforestation, particularly in human health and ecosystemendpoint categories. However, it is necessary a ―cradle to grave‖ analysis considering the use ofbiofuel in vehicles for a complete evaluation, which will be performed in a future work.