TY - JOUR

T1 - Life cycle assessment of pilot-scale wood fibre production using mechanical disc refining at different pressures

AU - Skinner, Campbell

AU - Stefanowski, Bronia

AU - Heathcote, Derek

AU - Charlton, Adam

AU - Ormondroyd, Graham

N1 - The research leading to these results has received funding from BEACON (funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Welsh Government) and the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 609234.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - This paper assesses the environmental impact of pilot-scale wood fibre production across a range of refining pressures using energy monitoring at an individual component level. Under optimal refining conditions (8 bar refining pressure; 15 µm plate gap width), electricity use accounted for 88% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the fibre production, and was the dominant input in almost all other impact categories. At an individual component level, the refiner, dryer fan and hot oil burner were the most significant parts of the process (representing 30, 20 and 16% of cradle-to-gate GHGs, respectively), while ancillary processes such as the air compressor (6.9%) and dust extraction (6.3%) also made notable contributions. The analysis suggests that energy efficiencies made with these key components may offer the best potential gains in terms of the environmental profile of pressurised refining, as long as these can be achieved without compromising yield or quality of the fibre produced.

AB - This paper assesses the environmental impact of pilot-scale wood fibre production across a range of refining pressures using energy monitoring at an individual component level. Under optimal refining conditions (8 bar refining pressure; 15 µm plate gap width), electricity use accounted for 88% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the fibre production, and was the dominant input in almost all other impact categories. At an individual component level, the refiner, dryer fan and hot oil burner were the most significant parts of the process (representing 30, 20 and 16% of cradle-to-gate GHGs, respectively), while ancillary processes such as the air compressor (6.9%) and dust extraction (6.3%) also made notable contributions. The analysis suggests that energy efficiencies made with these key components may offer the best potential gains in terms of the environmental profile of pressurised refining, as long as these can be achieved without compromising yield or quality of the fibre produced.

U2 - 10.1080/20426445.2016.1200825

DO - 10.1080/20426445.2016.1200825

M3 - Article

VL - 7

SP - 149

EP - 155

JO - International Wood Products Journal

JF - International Wood Products Journal

SN - 2042-6445

IS - 3

ER -