Metallic Wastes into New Process Catalysts: Life Cycle and Environmental Benefits within Integrated Analyses Using Selected Case Histories

For new technologies to become market competitors, they must operate substantially cheaper than their competitors or achieve outcomes that are difficult by current methods. Classical life cycle analysis (LCA) focuses on salient ecological impacts but bypasses key economic aspects and does not assign quantifiable benefits. This chapter factors in the benefits of environmental protection, reduced CO₂ emissions, and the environmental impacts of oil extraction and fuel production using a well-to-gate (also known as cradle-to-gate) LCA, as well as the economics involving the mitigation of landfill gate fees for waste resources and social cost of carbon. The case histories evaluated involve catalysts bio-refined from wastes for application in cleaner extraction, upgrading, and processing of heavy fossil and pyrolysis bio-oils and comparisons to their commercial counterparts. Each case history material was analysed with a commercial catalyst and a bio-catalyst assessed as an alternative based on oil ratios (%_eq. of g: g). Pyrolysis bio-oils from waste wood and algal sources were found to be upgradable successfully using both catalysts. They produce carbon-neutral fuels because of carbon sequestration during photosynthetic biomass growth, and the bacterial components supporting the catalyst become assimilated into the fuel.