Bioethanol production from cocoa hydrolysate and the assessment of its environmental sustainability

Bioethanol is recognized today as the most coveted biofuel, not only because of its tendency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other undesirable impacts associated with climate change, but also because of the simplicity of its methodology. This study evaluated bioethanol production from cocoa waste hydrolysates at the laboratory scale and, then evaluating the environmental impact associated with this production. Acid treatment was carried out on the hydrolysate in order to make it more accessible to ethanol-producing microorganisms. The cocoa hydrolysate was converted on a laboratory scale into bioethanol. The Ca, Mg, K and Na content of the substrate were respectively 78.4 ± 0.04; 109.59 ± 0.03; 1541.53 ± 0.08 and 195.05 ± 0.12 mg/L. The iron and total phosphorus contents were found to be at 14.06 ± 0.07 and 97.54 ± 0.01 mg/L respectively. The hydrolysate's biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5) was 1080 ± 0.01 mg/L. A two per cent alcohol yield was obtained from 50 mL of substrate. Environmental impacts were assessed and quantified using SimaPro software version 9.1.1.1, Ecoinvent v.3.6 database, ReCiPe Midpoint v.1.04 method and openLCA sustainable development software. A total of 15 impact factors were assessed and quantified. The categories with more significant impacts in the agricultural phase were land use (1.70 E+04 m2a crop eq), global warming (3.41 E+03 kg CO2eq) and terrestrial ecotoxicity (7.23 E+03 kg 1,4-DCB), which were the major hotspots observed in the lab-scale biomass-to-bioethanol conversion phase due, to the use of electricity, distilled water and chemicals. The result of this work has shown that the cocoa-based hydrolysate is a suitable substrate for the sustainable production of liquid biofuels.