Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Peer-reviewed

Cradle-to-Gate greenhouse gas emissions of the production of ethylene from U.S. Corn ethanol and comparison to fossil-derived ethylene production

Pahola Thathiana Benavides, Ulises R. Gracida-Alvarez, Kirti Richa, Jennifer Port, Troy R. Hawkins

Bioresource Technology · 2025

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Summary

emissions including producing ethylene from biobased feedstocks. This paper evaluates the cradle-to-gate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of bioethylene produced from U.S. corn ethanol. The analysis includes different pathways for the dehydration of corn ethanol to ethylene and co-processing routes via fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) processes. For the FCC co-processing route carbon-14 analysis is used to determine bioethanol yields. A 127% reduction in life cycle GHG emissions of bioethylene is estimated compared to fossil-derived ethylene for the base case. Additional case studies are also discussed to understand the reduction ofGHG emissionsdue tosustainable corn farming and renewable power use, biogenic carbon capture, and fuel switch with biofuels at the ethanol plant, and its impact on

Subject
Climate & greenhouse gas mitigation
Source type
Peer-reviewed study
System type
Arable cereals
DOI
10.1016/j.biortech.2025.132565
Catalogue ID
SNmoqqscsj-qmiqul
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