LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF DECAFFEINATED COFFEE BEANS PRODUCTION

• Main Author: Rochili, Andreana
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/65706
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Coffee is a drink favored by Indonesia people. Robusta coffee beans are the most widely produced local coffee in Indonesia due to their high caffeine content. Regular and excessive caffeine consumption will have a negative impact on consumers. To reduce this impact, a decaffeination process is carried out. Currently, environmental issues become one of the world's considerations and focuses. Every process in the production stage can have an impact on the environment. Therefore, an environmental impact analysis was carried out through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on a simulation of the decaffeinated coffee bean production process using the direct decaffeination method using ethyl acetate (EA) and dichloromethane (DCM) solvents. Analysis using cradle to gate system, ReCiPe 2016 midpoint method, hierarchist perspective on OpenLCA. The emission calculation is based on the production of 320 kg decaffeinated robusta coffee beans per batch with the scope of analysis starting from coffee bean cultivation, postharvest, transportation, and decaffeination. Hotspot analysis shows the greatest potential environmental impacts of the production process as a whole are human carcinogenic toxicity, marine ecotoxicity, global warming, freshwater ecotoxicity, and land use with amount of 7,73E+01 kg 1,4-DCB, 1,3E+01 kg 1,4-DCB, 5,58E+04 kg CO2 eq, 7,32E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, and 3,47E+04 m2a crop eq. for EA solvents, and 7,77E+01 kg 1,4-DCB, 1,3E+01 kg 1,4-DCB, 5,58E+04 kg CO2 eq, 7,49E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, and 3,47E+04 m2a crop eq for DCM solvents. Comparison of the impact of the use of solvents on the decaffeination process shows that the largest potential environmental impacts are marine ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, and human carcinogenic toxicity with amount of 8,52E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, 5,44E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, 7,65E+00 kg 1,4-DC for EA, and 8,52E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, 5,61E+00 kg 1,4-DCB, 8,03E+00 kg 1,4-DCB for DCM. The results of the analysis show that the cultivation process, caffeine extraction, and drying are the stages of the production process that have the most impact on the environment for both solvents. The application of agroforestry systems, reduction of inorganic and organic fertilizers, as well as the use of electricity sources that are more environmentally friendly can be an alternative to reducing emissions to the environment.