Cumulative Exergy and Life Cycle Assessment of Ethanol Fuel Production From Corn via Dry Milling

This study represents a cumulative exergy and life cycle assessment of corn ethanol production via dry milling. The process under consideration includes the agricultural process for production of corn, transportation of corn and industrial process of ethanol production. The secondary process of production of pesticides and fertilizers is also taken into consideration. It is seen that the exergy content of ethanol produced from this process is 23.3 MJ per liter of ethanol produced. The non-renewable input was 7.5 MJ per liter. The overall production efficiency of the industrial process was found to be 49%. The life cycle assessment results showed that both the global warming potential and acidification potential are positive which means that the production of corn ethanol via dry milling contributes to the increase of greenhouse gases and acidification.