Small-scale biogas plant enhancement and operation upgrade using life cycle assessment

Our current work aims to study ways to improve the operation of the biogas production facility BEEO GAZ, located in Istanbul Technical University, green campus, in order to maximize its energy production and reduce its environmental impact. To do this, we opted to use the LCA method to compare three scenarios. In addition to the existing scenario 1, including anaerobic digestion and cogeneration, scenario 2 proposes the incineration of the biogas residue, and scenario 3 suggests, in addition to incineration, a microalgae culture to produce biomass that will feed the anaerobic digester. In the first phase, we carried out a literature review to build knowledge on the themes related to our study. In the second phase, we proceeded to each scenario's inventory flows of the various elementary processes. In the third phase, we evaluated the impacts based on the impact categories best suited to our study and used, as a modeling tool, SimaPro software, relevant and recognized in LCA analysis. The modeling results were analyzed by impact category. The conclusions showed that the biogas plant operation, according to scenario 3, is the best alternative to increase energy production and reduce environmental impact. Indeed, the results show that scenario 3 allows an increase in energy production of 15% and a significant reduction in environmental impacts, in particular by avoiding the emission into the atmosphere of a quantity of around 92 tons of CO2eq / year and consequently the significant reduction of the effects on climate change.