Life cycle water footprint assessment of syngas production from biomass chemical looping gasification

Abstract Water is crucial for biofuel production. It is important to study the influence of biofuel technology on water resource for the development of biofuel. Life cycle water footprint for the syngas production via chemical looping gasification of corn straw and wheat straw is developed in this paper. The results show that the total water consumption of syngas production via corn straw and wheat straw chemical looping gasification are 1139.84 and 2170.41 L H2O/m3 syngas, respectively. The total water consumption of the aforementioned approaches is both dominated by crop growth stage. Additionally, different allocation methods have significant impact on the total water consumption. Sensitivity analysis demonstrates that water consumption of crop yield and crop growth can have an almost same but opposite impact on water consumption efficiency. Based on the results, guidance can be provided for crop straw to syngas via chemical looping gasification to lower water use.