Guidelines for modelling of life cycle GHG emission of fuel components from biomass pyrolysis

The goals of the European Union set out in Directive 2018/2001 for 2030, including in particular the transport target of 3.5% share of the energy produced from feedstocks listed in Annex IX to the directive, indicate the need to search for new technologies for processing these feedstocks. The latter include waste and residual materials, including those from agriculture and forestry, cellulosic and lignocellulosic materials. These are feedstocks that are difficult or impossible to process using currently operating technologies. For this reason, it is necessary to implement new technologies allowing the use of feedstocks listed in Annex IX. These technologies should allow the production of high-quality engine fuel components and at the same time meet the sustainability criteria defined in Directive 2018/2001. The conducted literature review indicated that biomass pyrolysis combined with the hydrograding process may be such a technology. The article also provides a short literature review concerning the determination of GHG emission intensity for products from solid biomass pyrolysis. The review showed that this is a promising process, however, depending on the raw materials and energy carriers used, meeting the GHG emission reduction criterion may be difficult, especially if biomass from crops is used as the raw material. This article provides guidelines for the development of a model for calculating GHG emissions in the life cycle of a biocomponent from biomass pyrolysis. The entire life cycle of the biocomponent has been divided into sub-processes. Each of them has been briefly characterized. For each of them, the system boundaries, functional unit, input and output streams are defined. The sources of GHG emissions and the product to which these emissions can be allocated were also indicated. The stages identified in this biofuel production pathway have been assigned to the GHG emission components given in the formula in Directive 2018/2001.