Evaluation of the environmental performance of alternatives for polystyrene production in Brazil

The global demand for polystyrene is supposed to reach an overall baseline of 23.5 million tons by 2020. The market has experienced the effects of such growth, especially regarding the environmental performance of the production processes. In Brazil, renewable assets have been used to overcome the adverse consequences of this expansion. This study evaluates this issue for the production of Brazilian polystyrene resins, general-purpose polystyrene (GPPS) and high-impact polystyrene (HIPS). The effects of replacing fossil ethylene with a biobased alternative are also investigated. Life Cycle Assessment is applied for ten scenarios, with different technological approaches for renewable ethylene production and an alternative for obtaining bioethanol, which considers the export of electricity. The fossil GPPS and HIPS show a better performance than the partially renewable sources in terms of Climate Change (CC), Terrestrial Acidification (TA), Photochemical Oxidant Formation (POF), and Water Depletion (WD). The exception is Fossil Depletion (FD), a somewhat predictable result. The main environmental loads associated with the renewable options are related to the sugarcane production. Polybutadiene fails to provide greater additional impact to HIPS when compared to GPPS. With regard to obtaining ethylene from ethanol, Adiabatic Dehydration (AD) technology consumes less sugarcane than Adiabatic Dehydration at High Pressure (ADHP), which leads to gains in TA and POF. In contrast, ADHP was more eco-friendly for WD because of its lower water losses and in terms of CC because of the advantageous balance of fossil CO2(eq) at the agricultural stage and the lower consumption of natural gas in ethylene production. The electricity export is an auspicious environmental opportunity because it can counterbalance some of the negative impacts associated with the renewable route. According to a "cradle-to-grave" perspective, the partially renewable resins show a more favorable balance of carbon. This difference increases when sequestration and biogenic carbon emissions are considered.