Life cycle assessment of Dunaliella salina powder production: evaluating environmental sustainability and resource impacts
Sustainable Food Technology, 2026 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1039/d6fb00190d
- Dergi Adı: Sustainable Food Technology
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus
- Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
As the demand for sustainable alternative food sources grows, microalgae have emerged as highly promising candidates; however, their industrial-scale production can be environmentally challenging and energy-intensive. This study presents a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of industrial-scale Dunaliella salina powder production, aiming to evaluate its environmental sustainability and resource impacts using a cradle-to-factory gate system boundary. The functional unit was defined as 1 kg of product. The assessment was conducted in accordance with ISO 14040/14044 standards, integrating primary factory measurements from a Turkish facility with secondary data from the Ecoinvent 3.11 and Agri-footprint 6.3 databases. Life cycle modeling was performed using SimaPro 10.2 software. The ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) v1.11 method was applied to quantify impacts across eighteen categories, including Global Warming (GW) and various toxicity metrics. The results identify electricity consumption as the dominant environmental hotspot, particularly during the energy-intensive drying stage, which accounts for over 60% of the total burden in major categories like GW (162 kg CO2-eq.) and Fossil Resource Scarcity (FRS). Normalized results further emphasize the disproportionate influence of energy use and metal-containing nutrient salts, especially on Human Non-Carcinogenic Toxicity (HTP-nc) and FRS. Secondary, yet notable, impacts stem from high-volume nutrient chemicals (e.g., MgSO4·7H2O, NH4Cl and the explicitly modeled bulk NaCl input), which predominantly affect ecotoxicity categories due to upstream industrial processing. Sensitivity analysis confirmed that transitioning to a lower-carbon electricity mix or implementing process-level energy efficiency improvements (e.g., 15% reduction) would lead to substantial impact mitigation across nearly all environmental categories. Additionally, substituting grid electricity with solar photovoltaic power for the drying stage slashed climate impacts by approximately 84%, although it introduced burden-shifting trade-offs in terrestrial ecotoxicity and mineral resource scarcity. Furthermore, Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis confirmed the high statistical reliability of the foreground data, with most impact categories exhibiting tightly constrained coefficients of variation (4.47–6.90%). Together these findings provide a scientifically robust foundation for guiding process design, technology development, and policy discussions aimed at scaling microalgal ingredients in an environmentally responsible manner.