A Comparative Environmental Assessment Between Fixed Bed Gasification Reactors and a Boiler Fueled with Biomass Waste

In southern Brazil, heat and power generation is performed mainly in boilers by direct combustion of fossil fuels (coal/oil) or renewable fuels (biomass/biogas). Regarding biomass, direct combustion may present a low burning efficiency, in addition to the emission of atmospheric pollutants. In this context, gasification may be a solution to this problem; this process consists of a controlled burning of the fuel, increasing the burning efficiency and reducing the emission of hazardous atmospheric pollutants, since those are concentrated in order to be burned and not simply emitted to the atmosphere. The present study focused on applying a Simplified Life Cycle Assessment (with Ecoinvent 3.5 database adapted with primary data of a pilot gasifier, using OpenLCA 1.8 software) to evaluate the potential reduction of environmental impacts by comparing a gasifier with a boiler (both fueled with biomass). The functional unit defined for this study is the production of 1MWh of energy obtained from the biomass burning justificar.