STOTEN-24474; No of Pages 10

Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life

cycle perspective
Mingxing Sun a,b, Yutao Wang b,c,⁎, Lei Shi a,⁎⁎
a
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Particle Pollution and Prevention (LAP3), Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
c
Tyndall Center, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Environmental performance of straw-

based pulp making was evaluated
through LCA.
• Energy production and chemical inputs
are the main contributors to environ-
mental impacts.
• Straw-based pulp making causes higher
environmental impacts than wood-
based pulp.
• Bio-based carbon emissions should not
be overlooked in pulp making industry.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Agricultural straw-based pulp making plays a vital role in pulp and paper industry, especially in forest deficient
Received 3 July 2017 countries such as China. However, the environmental performance of straw-based pulp has scarcely been stud-
Received in revised form 23 October 2017 ied. A life cycle assessment on wheat straw-based pulp making in China was conducted to fill of the gaps in com-
Accepted 24 October 2017
prehensive environmental assessments of agricultural straw-based pulp making. On average, the global warming
Available online xxxx
potential (GWP), GWP excluding biogenic carbon, acidification potential and eutrophication potential of wheat
Editor: Jay Gan straw based pulp making are 2299 kg CO2-eq, 4550 kg CO2-eq, 16.43 kg SO2-eq and 2.56 kg Phosphate-eq respec-
tively. The dominant factors contributing to environmental impacts are coal consumption, electricity consump-
Keywords: tion, and chemical (NaOH, ClO2) input. Chemical input decrease and energy recovery increase reduce the total
Wheat straw environmental impacts dramatically. Compared with wood-based and recycled pulp making, wheat straw-
Pulp based pulp making has higher environmental impacts, which are mainly due to higher energy and chemical re-
Life cycle assessment (LCA) quirements. However, the environmental impacts of wheat straw-based pulp making are lower than hemp and
Biogenic carbon flax based pulp making from previous studies. It is also noteworthy that biogenic carbon emission is significant in
bio industries. If carbon sequestration is taken into account in pulp making industry, wheat straw-based pulp
making is a net emitter rather than a net absorber of carbon dioxide. Since wheat straw-based pulp making pro-
vides an alternative for agricultural residue management, its evaluation framework should be expanded to fur-
ther reveal its environmental benefits.
© 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

⁎ Correspondence to: Y. Wang, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
⁎⁎ Correspondence to: L. Shi, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
E-mail addresses: yutaowang@fudan.edu.cn (Y. Wang), slone@tsinghua.edu.cn (L. Shi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
0048-9697/© 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
2 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

1. Introduction especially for agricultural straw-based pulp making. Therefore, there is

great need to clarify the environmental evaluation scope of straw-
As an indispensable industrial sector, pulp making, which utilizes based pulp making and study the environmental performance of typical
the cellulose component of biomass, is mainly derived from three straw-based pulp making processes.
sources: wood, non-wood (straw, sugarcane bagasse, bamboo etc.) This article tries to fill in this research gap by conducting a life cycle
and waste paper. Dating from the early stages in paper making history, assessment of wheat straw-based pulp making. Study refers to the data
straw like hemp was used to make paper in Han dynasty 2000 years ago. from two typical wheat straw-based pulp making companies in China.
Gradually, bamboo, rice straw and wheat straw were also used to make This article aims to provide a comprehensive environmental impacts
paper. Compared to straw-based paper making, wood-based paper of wheat straw based pulp making to fill in the knowledge gap, identify
making emerged later, though the bark of small shrub such as the hotspots of the environmental impacts, find solutions to reduce the
Broussonetia papyrifera was used to make paper more than 1500 years environmental impacts, and make a comparison of straw-based pulp
ago (Pan, 2009). Modern application of wood to make paper was with wood-based and recycle pulp making and set the status of straw-
invented in the early 19th century by Mathias Kroops, who also applied based pulp making. The article is set as follows: literature review on pre-
patents for straw, wood and waste paper pulp making technologies vious studies is presented in Section 2; materials and methodology are
(Koops, 2010). Though coming later, wood-based pulp developed rap- presented in Section 3; the main results are depicted in Section 4;
idly for its advantages in stable resource supply, easy scale-up and Sections 5 and 6 respectively present the discussions and conclusions.
high efficiency alkaline recovery. Straw-based pulp plays an important
role even in forest deficient countries, such as in China. China is one of 2. Literature review
the largest pulp and paper producers in the world, and straw-based
pulp making has a unique status in Chinese pulp making industry. The Pulp and paper industry is one of the most indispensable industrial
intrinsic high ash and carbohydrate content in straw significantly re- sectors. Nevertheless, it is also associated with high energy consump-
duces the efficiency of alkaline recovery from the black liquor and in- tion, high materials consumption and severe pollution, especially
creases pollutions emission. Besides, the energy consumption in wastewater pollution. To reveal the environmental performance and
straw-based pulp making is also more intensive. Consequently, under seek for solutions to tackle environmental burdens in pulp and paper in-
the pressure of strict environmental pollution control and immerse dustry, quantities of studies have been conducted at both national (re-
market competition, the production of straw-based pulp (the main gional) scale and individual pulp and paper mill scale, which varies
non-wood pulp type) is decreasing dramatically both in terms of rate from environmental burdens quantification, dominant influencing fac-
to total pulp production and absolute production volume (Fig. 1). tors identification, new technology implementation, to policy optimiza-
Compared with wood-based pulp, straw-based pulp making gener- tion. At national scale, the environmental burden quantification
ates more environmental pollutions, and are more vulnerable to envi- included energy consumption (Fleiter et al., 2012; Laurijssen et al.,
ronmental regulations (Wang et al., 2011). However, straw-based 2012; Xu et al., 2013), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Gielen et al.,
pulp plays an irreplaceable role in many occasions for it utilizes agricul- 2007; Peng et al., 2015), and water consumption (Francisco et al.,
ture residues to make pulp, which is a big problem in agriculture yet to 2014). The dominant influencing factors contributing to environmental
be solved. Through integrated into other industries, straw-based pulp burdens were identified through various decomposition methods on
making could be formed into a circular industrial products chain to pro- longitude historical data (Lindmark et al., 2011). The deployment of
mote circular economy with technological innovation. Therefore, com- the new technology to tackle environmental burdens (Fontini and
prehensive environmental evaluation of straw-based pulp making is Pavan, 2014; Jönsson and Berntsson, 2012) as well as the optimization
of great importance. Currently, the environmental evaluation on pulp of new technology adoption were also discussed in the literature
making is mainly for wood-based and recycled pulp, while the studies (Meza Solana and Juárez Nájera, 2016; Xu et al., 2013). At individual
on the environmental evaluation of straw-based pulp are limited, mill level, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method was widely used to

Fig. 1. The production of non-wood pulp and its share to total pulp and virgin pulp production in China.
Data source: Yearbook of pulp and paper production in China.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 3

identify the main environmental impact categories and contributors in 3. Materials and methodology
major pulp and paper making countries. Wood-based Kraft pulp and
paper (Cui et al., 2011; Silva et al., 2013), wood-based chemical ther- 3.1. Functional unit
mal mechanical pulp (CTMP) and paper (Ghose and Chinga-Carrasco,
2013; Manda et al., 2012), recycled pulp and paper (Gemechu et al., The functional unit is defined as one metric air-dried-ton of bleached
2013; Hong and Li, 2012) were all involved in previous LCA studies, pulp produced with wheat straw. All the scenarios setting, materials
and improvement opportunities were identified. Besides, researches and energy inputs, waste management, emissions etc. are based on
on transportation (González-García et al., 2009), wastewater treat- this functional unit in this study.
ment (Meyer and Edwards, 2014; Pokhrel and Viraraghavan, 2004),
sludge utilization (Mahmood and Elliott, 2006) etc. have also been ex- 3.2. System boundary
tensively conducted.
Though agricultural straw-based pulp making has a long history, dat- The system boundary, as is shown in Fig. 2, is set by using a “Cradle
ing back to Song Dynasty in China more than 1000 years ago (Pan, 2009), to Gate” approach, which includes wheat straw transportation, pre-
the prevailing modern pulp making technology focuses on wood-based treatment, pulping, screening and washing, bleaching, alkaline recov-
pulp making and recycled pulp making, which leads to the descending re- ery, energy production, onsite wastewater treatment etc. The
search interests of straw-based pulp making. The above-mentioned re- planting and harvesting stages of wheat straw are excluded from the
searches mainly focuses on wood-based and recycled pulp and paper system boundary since wheat straw is treated as waste in agriculture
making, while the researches on straw-based pulp and paper making is rather than main product or byproduct like hemp and flax that have
scarce. From the environmental perspective, the research on straw- been utilized to make pulp. Therefore, all related environmental bur-
based is mainly distributed in the feasibility of pulp and paper making dens from inputs and emissions in planting and harvest are allocated
from straw as well as environmental performance of specific processes. to wheat instead of allocating the environmental burdens in those
Because of shortage of forest and abundance of agriculture straw in two processes according to mass or economic value of wheat and
Asian countries, such as China, India and Bangladesh, etc. the feasibility wheat straw (Gonzálezgarcía et al., 2010). Because of data availability,
of making pulp out of straw and its environmental performance optimiza- pulping, screening and washing and bleaching processes are integrat-
tion have been discussed (Kaur et al., 2017). Since straw-based pulp mak- ed into one process. Two cases from two companies are included in
ing is deemed as environmentally unfriendly, identifying the this study. For Company A, all steam and electricity used are produced
opportunities for improving the environmental performance of straw- onsite. Besides, there is a residue incinerator in the plant to burn the
based pulp making was essential, especially in China where straw-based screenings from the pulping process (process in dotted line bracket
pulp has been the dominant pulp category (Ren, 1997). The treatment in Fig. 2) without energy recovery. For Company B, only steam used
of black liquor is one of the major research topics. Aside from the conven- is produced onsite, while electricity is purchased from national grid.
tional alkaline recovery method, electrocoagulation treatment of the The screenings from pulping process ended up in solid waste instead
black liquor from soda-anthraquinone (AQ) wheat straw pulping of being incinerated. All the solid waste, which includes sludge,
(Rastegarfar et al., 2015) and adding sulfuric acids to the black liquor white liquor, coal ash, gypsum and screenings are sold to other com-
(Yang, 1995) were explored at laboratory scale to find alternative solu- panies for further utilization and are therefore cut off from the system
tions. Bleaching process is fundamental for pulp making. The usage of boundary. Since infrastructure plays minor role in pulp making
chlorine and chlorine dioxide in bleaching process could inevitably (Kasah, 2013) and available data is limited, it is also excluded from
bring in the formation of absorbable organic halides (AOX), with dioxin this study.
one of the most typical representatives. Quantities of researches studied
the formation and bio-toxicity of the present of AOX in pulp and in 3.3. Methodology
waste water because of the introduction of chlorine containing bleaching
agents, and promoted chlorine free bleaching methods in pulp making (X. The midpoint life cycle assessment (LCA) results are calculated by
Wang et al., 2012; Z. Wang et al., 2012; Wrisberg and Gaag, 1992), such as using CML 2001 method in GaBi software. The CML 2001 method in-
substitution the bleaching agents chlorine or chlorine oxides with en- cludes 12 categories of midpoint impact categories: Abiotic Depletion
zymes (Bajpai et al., 2006). Waste use and wastewater discharge in (ADP elements), Abiotic Depletion (ADP fossil), Acidification Potential
some straw-based pulp making were optimized to reduce the water con- (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity
sumption to the least (Li et al., 2016). Besides wastewater treatment, re- Potential (FAETP), Global Warming Potential (GWP), Global Warming
searches also analyzed the usage of sludge to produce bioethanol Potential (GWP) excluding biogenic carbon, Human Toxicity Potential
because of large quantity of polysaccharide content in the sludge, and (HTP), Marine Aquatic Ecotoxicity Potential (MAETP), Ozone Layer
the life cycle impact of the bioethanol production out of sludge was Depletion Potential (ODP), Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential
assessed (Sebastião et al., 2016). (POCP), Terrestric Ecotoxicity Potential (TETP). CML 2001 is a widely
Comprehensive evaluation of straw-based pulp is limited. One of used approach for LCA (Guinee, 2002; Mourad et al., 2014; Piekarski
the pioneer works addressing the life cycle environmental impacts et al., 2017); also, it distinguishes GWP including biogenic carbon
of straw-based pulp making is hemp and flax based pulp produc- from GWP excluding biogenic carbon, which helps to identify the
tion with data from a factory in Spain (Gonzálezgarcía et al., non-fossil fuel related GHG emissions. Since non-fossil fuel related
2010). By using a “Cradle to gate” approach, global warming poten- GHG emissions take large share in total GHG emissions in bio-indus-
tial (GWP), acidification potential and eutrophication potential en- try, it is of great importance to calculate this part in pulp making
vironmental impacts are briefed. Another work contributing to industry.
straw-based pulp comprehensive evaluation study is the hemp
based pulp production based on secondary data in Portugal, and 3.4. Inventory data source
similar results were reported (Vieira et al., 2010). Those works pro-
vide a benchmark for straw-based pulp making. However, they can- Two cases from two typical companies are included in the study.
not represent the main stream of straw-based pulp making, which Company A is a big national pulp and paper company with
utilizes agriculture residues (wheat and rice stalk) to make pulp, 400,000 tons of pulp and 800,000 tons of paper produced annually.
an important pulp making branch in China. Therefore, comprehen- The annual wheat straw pulp making is around 100,000 tons. Company
sive environmental evaluation of agriculture straw-based pulp A has its own steam and electricity generation systems, alkaline recov-
making is in great need. ery facilities, wastewater treatment facilities and residual incinerator.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
4 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Fig. 2. The system boundary of straw-based pulp making in China.

But there is no energy recovery in the residue incinerator. Company A 3.5. Life cycle inventory
utilizes NaOH and Na2S2O3 as cooking agents to make Kraft wheat
straw pulp. Company B is a local pulp and paper company, with The life cycle inventory data are shown in Table 1. All the inputs and
51,000 tons of caustic soda wheat pulp and 100,000 tons of paper pro- outputs are based on the functional unit. The inventory data integrate all
duction. Company B has its own steam production system, alkaline re- inputs and emissions from life cycle process of pulp making as shown in
covery facilities, and wastewater treatment facilities. However, the Fig. 1.
electricity is purchased from the national grid and screenings from the
pulping are sold to other companies instead of burnt in self-owned in-
cinerator. Compared to wood pulp companies, straw pulp companies 4. Results
are rather small. Company A and Company B represents large size
scale and medium size straw pulp making companies. Given that the 4.1. Mid-point results
total wheat and rice straw pulp making production is 2,440,000 tons
in 2016 (CPA, 2017), Company A and B are representative of straw The mid-point impact of wheat straw pulp making in two companies
pulp making companies in China. are presented in Table 2. Overall, Company A has better environmental
The monitoring data (material and energy inputs, chemicals in- performance in most mid-point impact categories except FAETP impact
puts, water consumption, wastewater generation, solid waste gener- category. The differences of the two companies are significant in AP and
ation, air emissions from energy generation, etc.) of pulp making are GWP impact categories. The differences of AP in two companies are
taken from the annual average data of the two companies (2013 for mainly attributed to electricity consumption and energy recovery in al-
Company A and 2014 for Company B). The transportation distance kaline recovery. For Company A, the contribution of electricity con-
is set to be 150 km by taking half of the transportation radius sumption is 1.10 kg SO2-eq. While for Company B, the corresponding
300 km. The air emissions from black liquor recovery and residue in- electricity, whose absolute value is much higher than that in Company
cinerator are calculated based on wheat straw indoor incineration A, contributes to 8.67 kg SO2-eq. Due to efficiency differences in energy
data (Zhou et al., 2017) with the assumption that wheat straw burn- recovery in alkaline recovery process, the contribution of energy recov-
ing has the same emission factors in black liquor burning and incin- ery of Company A and B is −3.67 and −1.32 kg SO2-eq respectively. The
erator burning as in indoor burning. Data on wastewater treatment GWP differences of two companies mainly lie in fossil fuel related GHG
are cited from wheat straw pulp wastewater treatment plants in ref- emissions, while the differences in biogenic carbon emissions are minor.
erence (Zhang and Zhang, 2008). Data on energy recovery from the The big differences in fossil fuel GHG emissions are largely attributed to
alkaline recovery in Company A is taken from reference (Zhang, energy recovery efficiency of two companies. For Company A, the ener-
2011). The background data on chemicals production, electricity gy recovery offsets 2172 kg CO2-eq GHG emissions. For Company B, the
production in China, water production etc. are taken from eco-invent corresponding quantity is 1080 kg CO2-eq. The high value of FAETP im-
database. Generally, Chinese data are used; and in certain cases, pact category in Company A is mainly due to the impact from bleaching
global average data are deployed. process, in which chlorine dioxide is deployed for bleaching.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 5

Table 1 category, chemicals consumption in pulping process is the main con-

Life cycle inventory of sulfate (Company A) and caustic straw pulping. Values are present- tributor in both companies. For ADP fossil impact category, steam pro-
ed per functional unit.
duction, chemical consumption in pulping process and electricity
Unit Company A Company B production are the main contributors in Company A. Energy recovery
Material inputs in alkaline recovery also offsets substantial amount of fossil use. In Com-
Wheat straw kg 2.65E+03 2.94E+03 pany B the same trend is observed, but the contribution of alkaline re-
Electricity kwh 847.89 covery is smaller because of low energy recovery efficiency. For AP
Coal kg 786.61 416.09
and EP, aside from energy production and pulping, residue incineration
Diesel kg 6.4 7.09
Water t 21.42 80.05 in Company A and pretreatment and wastewater treatment in Company
Limestone kg 4.36 4.28 B also take moderate share. Alkaline recovery also offsets for AP and EP
Urea kg 0.36 5.61 in Company A and EP in Company B. For total GWP, in Company A,
NaOH kg 200 379.2 steam production is the largest contributor (50.10%), followed by
ClO2 kg 50
Cl2 kg 120
pulping (20.35%), electricity production (20.17%) and residue incinera-
H2O2 kg 40 48 tion (20.13%). Alkaline recovery offsets 18.46% of the total GWP. In Com-
Na2S2O3 kg 15 pany B, steam production (38.21%) and pulping (30.20%) are the largest
Quick lime kg 168 443 contributors. However, alkaline recovery becomes a net emitter rather
P kg 0.79 1.77
than offset GHG emissions (20.51%). For GWP excluding biogenic car-
PAM kg 4.73 10.62
PAC kg 3.6 8.08 bon emissions, in both Company A and Company B, energy production
and pulping are the dominant contributors, while energy recovery in al-
Gas emissions
kaline recovery offsets substantial amount of GHG emissions. For ODP
Sulfur dioxide kg 4.7 2.47
Nitrogen oxides kg 2.9 3.08 impact category, chemicals consumption in pulping process and alka-
Particle matter kg 0.51 0.27 line recovery process is the main contributor in both companies, while
VOCs kg 15.76 16.02 the impact from other processes are negligible. For POCP impact catego-
Ammonia nitrogen kg 0.62 0.63 ry, direct emissions from biomass burning in alkaline recovery and in-
Carbon monoxide kg 229.53 233.35
cineration processes are the main contributors. The chemicals
Elementary carbon kg 0.71 0.72
Organic carbon kg 5.82 5.92 consumption in pulping and alkaline recovery processes is responsible
Carbon dioxide kg 1.96E+03 1.06E+03 for TETP impact category in both companies.
Carbon dioxide (biogenic) kg 2.18E+03 2.32E+03
Methane kg 13.96 14.19
4.3. The contribution of chemicals in environmental impacts
Mercury kg 1.87E−05 1.90E−05

Water emissions As is illustrated in Section 3.2, except for energy consumption,

Waste water t 21.75 34.9
pulping process contributes substantially in total environmental im-
Ammonia nitrogen kg 0.05 0.02
COD kg 1.37 2.14
pacts. The pulping process, which includes cooking, screening and
SS kg 0.5 washing and bleaching, is involved in large quantities of chemicals con-
Absorbable organic halides (AOX) kg 0.005 0.01 sumption. Thus, it is important to explore the contribution of cooking
Solid waste
and bleaching agents. Besides, quantities of quick lime are added in
Coal ash kg 158.81 85.45 the alkaline recovery process, whose environmental impact should
Gypsum kg 10.59 10.4 also be examined at a higher resolution. Therefore, we examined the en-
White mud kg 300.1 328 vironmental impacts of chemicals in pulp making of two companies. As
Sludge kg 65.77 198.73
is shown in Fig. 5 in Company A, chemicals contribute substantially to
most environmental impacts categories, except GWP and POCP. The
4.2. The contribution of different processes in environmental impacts main cooking agent NaOH and bleaching agent ClO2 play dominant
role in contributing the total environmental impacts. Another bleaching
To identify the hotspots contributing to the environmental impacts, agent, H2O2, has moderate impact in ADP fossil, FAETP, HTP and MAETP
it is essential to analyze the contribution of different processes and iden- impact categories. The impact of quick lime mainly lies in ADP fossil, fos-
tify the main contributors. The relative contribution of different process sil related GWP and TETP impact categories. In comparison, as shown in
for Company A and B are depicted in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. Steam Fig. 6 in Company B, the contribution of chemicals is smaller than that in
production and pulping processes contribute much to most environ- Company A. However, it does not necessarily mean that the absolute
mental impact categories, except POCP. For ADP element impact value of the environmental impacts of chemicals in Company B are
lower than those in Company A. For AP, EP, FAETP, HTP and MAETP im-
pact categories, chemicals inputs in Company B have better perfor-
Table 2 mance, while for other impact categories, chemicals inputs in
The CML 2001 midpoint impact of two companies. Values are present per functional unit. Company A have better performance. The most significant difference
in chemicals inputs between Company A and B is the impact from
Impact categories Unit Company A Company B Average
bleaching agent in Company B Cl2, whose environmental impact is
ADP elements kg Sb-eq 8.53E−03 9.63E−03 9.08E−03 smaller than ClO2 in terms of both absolute value and proportion to
ADP fossil MJ 9.33E+03 2.21E+04 1.57E+04
AP kg SO2-eq 10.74 22.12 16.43
total value. The impact from cooking agent NaOH in Company B in big-
EP kg Phosphate-eq 2.15 2.97 2.56 ger than that in Company A because of more absolute inputs of NaOH.
FAETP kg DCB-eq 405.38 370.33 387.86 The impacts of H2O2 are mainly distributed in FAETP, HTP and MAETP
GWP kg CO2-eq 3.84E+03 5.26E+03 4.55E+03 impact categories. Quick lime mostly contributes to ADP fossil, GWP,
GWP excluding kg CO2-eq 1.65E+03 2.95E+03 2.30E+03
HDP, ODP and TETP impact categories.
biogenic carbon
HTP kg DCB-eq 532.04 731.52 631.78
MAETP kg DCB-eq 1.60E+06 2.25E+06 1.93E+06 4.4. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis
ODP kg R11-eq 2.11E−04 3.32E−04 2.72E−04
POCP kg Ethene-eq 10.96 11.73 11.35 The sensitivity analysis of the main contributors in wheat straw pulp
TETP kg DCB-eq 7.32 10.07 8.70
making in two companies are shown in Table 3. For Company A, cooking

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
6 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Fig. 3. The contribution of different processes for mid-point impact in wheat straw pulp making in Company A.

agent NaOH, bleaching agents ClO2 and H2O2 and energy inputs are an- consumption of ClO2, followed by consumption of NaOH and steam.
alyzed. For AP, steam consumption is the most sensitive element. Re- For OTP and TETP, the consumption of NaOH is the most sensitive factor.
ducing the consumption of ClO2 and NaOH also brings much For Company B, cooking agent NaOH, bleaching agent Cl2 and H2O2,
environmental benefits. For EP and FAETP, the consumption of ClO2 is electricity consumption and steam consumption in alkaline recovery
the most sensitive factor; steam consumption and NaOH input are also were tested for their sensitivity to the environmental impacts. As is il-
sensitive to the total environment. For GWP and GWP excluding bio- lustrated in Table 3, bleaching agent Cl2 and H2O2 are not very sensitive.
genic carbon, steam consumption is the most sensitive factor. Ten per- For AP and MAETP, electricity consumption is the most sensitive factor,
cent of steam consumption reduction could bring 11.10% of fossil fuel and the consumption of NaOH and steam consumption in alkaline re-
related carbon emissions reduction and 5.01% of total carbon emission covery process are important factors. For GWP, steam consumption in
reduction. For HTP and MAETP, the most sensitive factor is the alkaline recovery is the most sensitive factor. Electricity consumption

Fig. 4. The contribution of different processes for mid-point impact in wheat straw pulp making in Company B.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 7

overall uncertainty are also identified (data not shown). For Company
A, for ADP fossil, AP, EP, GWP and GWP excluding biogenic carbon im-
pact categories, coal is the largest contributor. For ODP, NaOH is the larg-
est contributor. For the rest impact categories, ClO2 is the largest
contributor. For Company B, electricity contributes most to ADP fossil,
AP, EP, GWP and GWP excluding biogenic carbon, MAETP and POCP im-
pact categories. And NaOH is the largest contributor for the rest impact
categories.

5. Discussion

5.1. Hotspots in wheat straw pulp making and improving opportunities

Wheat straw pulp making is a unique technique to make use of ag-

riculture residues and provide materials for papermaking. There exist
distinguished differences in environmental performance between big
plant (Company A) and small plant (Company B). For most environ-
mental impact categories, Company A is more environmentally friendly
than Company B. The dominant reasons accounting for the differences
include higher energy input and lower energy recovery efficiency in al-
kaline recovery process in Company B. The life cycle energy input in
Company B is around 25% higher than that in Company A, thus the asso-
ciated environmental impacts is higher in Company B. With regard to
Fig. 5. The contribution of different chemicals in pulp making in environmental impacts in the energy recovery in alkaline recovery process, in Company A, in addi-
Company A.
tion to self-used energy for alkaline recovery, the steam produced could
meet 52% of the total energy demand of the wheat straw pulp making;
is also very sensitive to GWP. For EP, FAETP, HTP, the most sensitive fac- however, in Company B, the energy recovery only meets 93% of the self-
tor is NaOH consumption, and steam consumption in alkaline recovery used energy demand for alkaline recovery. Therefore, the environmen-
and electricity consumption are sensitive to these impact categories. For tal performances in alkaline recovery process are different. The distinc-
OTP and TETP, the consumption of NaOH is the most sensitive factor, tion of the environmental impact in chemical consumption and
while other factors are not sensitive to OTP and TETP. wastewater treatment between two companies are minor compared
To reveal the possible deviation of caused by the uncertainty of the to that in energy consumption and energy recovery.
inputs, uncertainty analysis is conducted for both companies. Taylor se- As is shown in the sector above, energy consumption and chemical
ries expansion method is deployed for the analysis on life cycle impact inputs are the dominant factors contributing to the environmental im-
assessment categories (Hong et al., 2010). The square geometric stan- pacts. The reduction of energy consumption and critical chemicals
dard deviation (GSD), which covers the 95% confidence interval of dif- could help to reduce the total environmental impacts, especially those
ference impact categories, is presented in Table 4. The Taylor series being sensitive to environmental impacts, such as steam consumption,
yields a GSD2 on the AP score of Company A 1.11, which means that electricity consumption, NaOH consumption and ClO2 consumption in
the a 95% confidence interval corresponds to the range from AP impact Company A. For the two companies, there are more opportunities to re-
value (shown in Table 2, 10.74 kg SO2-eq in this case) times GSD2 to AP duce the overall environmental impacts. For Company A, in the residue
impact value divided by GSD2. The same analogy could be made to other incineration process, no energy recovery is conducted, which leads to
impact categories. In addition, substances contributing to most to the large amount of energy loss. If energy recovery is deployed, assuming
that the energy recovery efficiency of incinerator is the same as energy
recovery in alkaline recovery process, the AP, EP, FAETP, GWP and GWP
excluding biogenic carbon could be reduced by 12.10%, 8.48%, 6.93%,
11.08% and 25.92% respectively. The energy recovery in incinerator is
of great importance in reducing the overall environmental impacts.
For Company B, the energy recovery efficiency improvement is also sig-
nificant in reducing the environmental impacts. If the same energy re-
covery rate in alkaline recovery in Company A is achieved in Company
B, the AP, EP, FAETP, GWP and GWP excluding biogenic carbon could
be reduced by 7.94%, 10.60%, 10.98%, 13.70% and 23.05% respectively.
Therefore, the renovations of energy recovery in both alkaline recovery
process and residue incineration process are important to reduce the
environmental impacts.

5.2. Comparison with wood-based and recycled pulp

Straw-based pulp making is often associated with high energy and

materials inputs and severe emissions. From life cycle perspective, the
environmental impacts of straw-based pulp making are larger than
wood pulp and recycled pulp making. Since different studies used dif-
ferent methods to determine the environmental impacts of pulp mak-
ing, here we compare the most common used environmental impact
Fig. 6. The contribution of different chemicals in pulp making in environmental impacts in categories: GWP (kg CO2-eq), AP (kg SO2-eq), and EP (kg Phosphate-
Company B. eq). By referring to the life cycle assessment of pulp making of different

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
8 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Table 3
Sensitivity of the main contributors for mid-point impact in Company A and B.

Companies Company A Company B

Inputs NaOH H2O2 Electricity consumption ClO2 Steam consumption NaOH H2O2 Electricity Cl2 Steam consumption
consumption in alkaline recovery

Variations 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10%
AP 1.78% 0.28% 0.95% 3.03% 5.47% 1.44% 0.12% 3.45% 0.14% 2.02%
EP 2.40% 0.45% 0.52% 4.09% 3.83% 2.66% 0.26% 1.92% 0.18% 2.65%
FAETP 2.62% 0.90% 0.38% 6.19% 3.13% 4.09% 0.74% 1.45% 0.00% 2.79%
GWP 0.72% 0.15% 1.16% 1.10% 5.01% 0.90% 0.10% 1.46% 0.33% 3.46%
GWP exclude biogenic 1.56% 0.32% 2.58% 2.37% 11.10% 1.48% 0.16% 2.46% 0.50% 5.82%
HTP 3.37% 0.61% 0.22% 5.06% 1.81% 4.13% 0.40% 2.21% 0.05% 1.42%
MAETP 2.43% 0.82% 0.27% 6.34% 2.23% 2.84% 0.51% 3.43% 0.05% 1.51%
OTP 7.31% 0.22% 0.01% 1.67% 0.08% 8.77% 0.14% 0.03% 1.63E-07 0.30%
TETP 3.84% 0.46% 0.07% 3.64% 0.55% 5.09% 0.32% 1.26% 0.09% 0.64%

categories of pulp in different countries, we made a comparison of GWP, 5.3. Comparison with other straw based pulp
AP and EP of wood Kraft pulp making (Ghose and Chinga-Carrasco,
2013; Gonzálezgarcía et al., 2009; Judl et al., 2011), wood CTMP making Compared to wood-based pulp making, the studies on life cycle en-
(Ghose and Chinga-Carrasco, 2013), recycled pulp making (ICE, 2012; vironmental impacts of straw-based pulp making are scarce, which can
Hong and Li, 2012) and pulp making in Company A and Company B. It largely be attributed to less straw-based pulp making practices. The two
should be noted that the scope of the studies from the literature is “Cra- cases found in literature are the LCA of hemp and flax based pulp mak-
dle to gate”, which also includes forest harvest in wood-based pulp and ing in Spain (Gonzálezgarcía et al., 2010) and the hemp based pulp mak-
waste paper collection in recycled pulp. Nevertheless, the harvest pro- ing in Portugal (Vieira et al., 2010). In the Spanish case, the impact from
cess plays minor role in the overall environmental impact, and does hemp and flax planting process is allocated to the pulp making based on
not influence the results significantly. As is shown in Fig. 7, the environ- economic value since the straw of hemp and flax is a main product rath-
mental impacts of wheat straw pulp making in both companies are er than waste. The Portuguese case also includes the straw planting pro-
higher than any other categories of pulp making. Taking GHG emission cess. The comparisons of the GWP, AP and EP of Company A and B with
for example, the emission from Company A is 4.5, 7.3 and 3.9 times of other studies indicate that the environmental performance in current
the emission from wood Kraft pulp, wood CTMP and recycled pulp re- studies is better than the straw-base pulp making from the literature
spectively. And for Company B, the corresponding numbers are 7.9, (Fig. 9). Take GWP for an example, if agriculture process is included,
13.0 and 7.0. Though the number of the cases in addressing the environ- the emissions of the Spanish case is much higher than that in the current
mental impacts of different categories of pulp making is limited, the study. The differences are mainly attributed to chemicals inputs and en-
higher environmental impacts of wheat straw pulp making is obvious. ergy recovery in alkaline recovery process, and will significantly de-
The remarkable differences of the environmental differences are attrib- crease after excluding agriculture process. For AP, the same
uted to energy consumption and chemicals inputs. Besides, the energy phenomenon is observed, but the contribution of electricity in the Span-
source difference also contributes to the difference. For instance, cases ish case contributes more because of more electricity inputs. For EP, the
from Brazil and Norway heavily rely on hydro-electricity (Ghose and agriculture process plays a dominant role. After excluding agriculture
Chinga-Carrasco, 2013; Judl et al., 2011), whose environmental impacts
is smaller than coal based electricity production in Company A and B.
After excluding the steam and electricity related GHG emissions in
pulp making, the GWP of wheat straw-based pulp making is still signif-
icantly higher than that in wood-based and recycled pulp making (Fig.
8). To reduce the environmental burdens and promote the cleaner pro-
duction in straw pulp making, diverse cooperation of different stake-
holders, such as governmental bodies, industries, the public, is greatly
needed (Perc et al., 2017).

Table 4
Squared geometric standard deviation of two companies using the Taylor series expansion
method.

Impact category GSD2CompanyA GSD2CompanyB

ADP elements 1.11 1.14

ADP fossil 1.50 1.12
AP 1.11 1.13
EP 1.13 1.11
FAETP 1.15 1.12
GWP 1.05 1.06
GWP excluding biogenic carbon 1.11 1.10
HTP 1.12 1.12
MAETP 1.14 1.14
ODP 1.14 1.16
POCP 1.01 1.01
Fig. 7. The comparison of environmental impacts of different categories of pulp making
TETP 1.10 1.11
with wheat straw pulp making in Company A and B.

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 9

happens during the biomass harvest process. However, the carbon is

emitted into the atmosphere anyway in the industrial processing,
which is mainly lignin incineration in the case of pulp making industry.
Most pulp making environmental evaluation methods only comprise
fossil fuel related carbon emissions and neglect biogenic carbon emis-
sions. Those methods cannot fully reflect the environmental perfor-
mance of pulp making. For CTMP making, much lignin is retained in
the pulp rather than going to black liquor for incineration. In this case,
less lignin is incinerated for energy recovery, which means more fossil
energy is needed, thus the fossil related carbon emissions are higher.
For some Kraft pulp making, the lignin in the black liquor is extracted
to make other products, such as fertilizers, and no alkaline and energy
recovery are involved (Wei and Sun, 2010). Also, more fossil fuel related
energy is needed in pulp making, so the carbon emissions are higher
compared to conventional alkaline recovery based pulp making. There-
fore, the biogenic carbon emissions should be reported separately to re-
veal the true emission of the industrial process, especially for bio related
industries. To reveal the balance between carbon emission and carbon
sequestration of the pulp making, carbon fixation in the wheat straw
should be reported, which are 3797 kg CO2 and 4213 kg CO2 in Compa-
Fig. 8. The comparison of GWP of different categories of pulp making with wheat straw
ny A and Company B respectively based on the carbon content in wheat
pulp making in Company A and B after excluding emissions from energy supply. straw (Li et al., 2014). From this point of view, pulp making processes in
both Company A and Company B are net carbon emitters rather than net
carbon stock.
process, the impact from the Spanish case is still higher than that in
Company A and B. 6. Conclusions

5.4. The contribution of biogenic carbon As an important component of pulp making, straw-based pulp mak-
ing has been insufficiently studied and analyzed. In addition to provid-
In conventional pulp making, cellulose component of the biomass is ing pulp to make paper, straw-based pulp making also provides vital
extracted to make pulp, and the lignin component is mostly incinerated alternative for agricultural residue treatment. Therefore, the compre-
for energy, during which large quantities of biogenic carbon is emitted. hensive environmental evaluation of straw-based pulp making is essen-
Though biogenic carbon emission is usually not included in most LCA tial to identify the dominant influencing factors and propose
studies of pulp and paper making based on carbon neutrality principle recommendations for improvement. By taking the data of two typical
(Dias and Arroja, 2012; Dias et al., 2007; Gemechu et al., 2013), the bio- wheat straw-based pulp making companies in China, this study evalu-
genic carbon emission is significant. For Company A, the biogenic car- ate the environmental performance of straw-based pulp making by
bon emission is 2184 kg CO2 eq, which is even higher than fossil fuel using LCA method. The results showed that the big company has better
related carbon emissions (1651). For Company B, around 2317 kg CO2 environmental performance than the small company does, especially in
eq biogenic carbon are emitted. Based on carbon neutrality principle, GWP and AP categories. The differences of the two companies can be
the biogenic carbon emitted in the industrial process is offset by the car- mostly attributed to energy inputs and energy recovery efficiency dif-
bon sequestration in biomass growing process, and no land use change ferences. The dominating factors contributing to environmental impact
categories include coal and electricity inputs, chemicals and energy re-
covery in alkaline recovery processes. Chemicals (NaOH and ClO2) are
most sensitive factors for Company A, while NaOH and energy recovery
efficiency are most sensitive factors for Company B. Besides inputs re-
duction, energy recovery in residue incinerator in Company A and effi-
ciency improvement in energy recovery in Company B could
significantly reduce the overall environmental impacts.
By taking the “Cradle to Gate” scope, the environmental impacts of
straw-based pulp making are much higher than wood-based and
recycled pulp, which is mostly attributed to high energy consumption
and chemicals input. Compared to existing straw-based pulp making,
Company A and B show better environmental performance, which
could be attributed to less chemicals inputs and energy recovery in
Company A and Company B. The biogenic carbon emissions in bio in-
dustries play a vital role though they are often not reported. Only fossil
fuel carbon cannot fully reflect the environmental performance of the
industry. Therefore, biogenic carbon emissions, total carbon emissions,
and carbon sequestration should be reported for bio industries. If carbon
sequestration is calculated, both Company A and Company B are net car-
bon emitters rather than carbon absorbers.
Agricultural straw is taken as agriculture waste and would be pro-
duced anyway and straw-based pulp making is one alternative to treat
agriculture straw. Therefore, the environmental evaluation framework
Fig. 9. The comparison of environmental impacts of other straw-based pulp making with of agricultural straw-based pulp making should be expanded to include
that in Company A and B. the spillover effect of straw-based pulp making, which includes

Please cite this article as: Sun, M., et al., Environmental performance of straw-based pulp making: A life cycle perspective, Sci Total Environ
(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250
10 M. Sun et al. / Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

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(2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.250