Vinícius Gonçalves Maciel

Bio: Vinícius Gonçalves Maciel is an academic researcher from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. The author has contributed to research in topics: Life-cycle assessment & Organic farming. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 17 publications receiving 174 citations. Previous affiliations of Vinícius Gonçalves Maciel include Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul.

Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from rice production systems in Brazil: A comparison between minimal tillage and organic farming

Abstract: Knowledge on the environmental impact caused by rice cultivation, the most consumed cereal in the world, is essential to assess agricultural impact on total global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), we compared the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of white and brown rice from two different cultivation systems, minimal tillage and organic, under the practices and climate conditions prevailing in the south of Brazil, the most important rice-producer region in Latin America. The “Cradle to Gate” approach was used, including the stages of cultivation, grain drying, and processing, considering the functional unit of 1 kg of protein produced. The results were characterized using the IPCC 2013 method. The highest value of GWP 100 was observed for the organic white rice, equivalent to 35.53 kg CO 2-eq /kg of protein, followed by the organic brown rice, equivalent to 26.50 kg CO 2-eq /kg of protein, whereas the lowest GWP 100, equivalent to 15.80 kg CO 2-eq /kg of protein, was observed for the minimal white rice. The minimal tillage brown rice, released 20.91 kg CO 2-eq /kg of protein. Results clearly show that the cultivation stage is the hotspot for environmental impacts, caused by field emissions, which represented 91% in the organic farming and 61% in the minimal tillage system. The use of mineral fertilizers, in the case of the minimal tillage system, represented 34% of the emissions. This research might help in the elaboration of rice production inventories, as well as in trying to provide reliable information to stakeholders in order to choose sustainable products and processes.

Sustainability assessment of soybean production in Southern Brazil: A life cycle approach

Abstract: Brazil is one of the leaders in soybean cultivation and Rio Grande do Sul state (RS, Southern Brazil) is one of the most important soybean producing regions in the country. Various studies have indicated the environmental impacts of soybean cultivation, however there is a lack of research into other dimensions of sustainability concerning the production of this crop. Thus, this study aims to verify the level of sustainability of soybean production in RS based on the soybean life cycle. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment was used to qualify and quantify nine impact categories and/or stakeholders: acidification, eutrophication and global warming potential; supply, infrastructure and maintenance costs; financial expenses, workers, local communities and society, and value chain actors. Data were gathered using both questionnaires and secondary data collections (specific and generic). The most critical impacts in each dimension were eutrophication (environmental), supply costs (economic) and the stakeholders local communities/society (social). RS soybean has a good level of sustainability and the social dimension is perceived to have the highest potential of improvement. The results indicate some trends to improve soybean sustainability in RS state. However, due to the complexity of the evaluation, proposed changes must be evaluated carefully as they may affect the impacts of the three evaluated dimensions.

State-of-the-art and limitations in the life cycle assessment of ionic liquids

Abstract: Even though the development and use of ionic liquids (ILs) has rapidly grown in recent years, in the literature, information addressing the environmental performance of these substances in a life cycle context is comparatively scarce. This review critiques the state-of-the-art environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on ILs in the literature, identifies the existing shortcomings, which could be delaying complete employment of the LCA framework to the field of ILs, and also identifies strategies for overcoming these shortcomings. This review indicates that there are several limitations associated with the implementation of the LCA in all steps and discusses them. Since data about manufacturing at industrial scale are generally inaccessible, a set of methods and assumptions have been used in previous studies to determine the life cycle inventories (LCIs), such as simplified LCA, “tree life-cycle approach”, use of energy monitor devices, thermodynamic methods, chemical simulation process and other secondary data. However, the analysis of the data quality has not always been performed. Also, currently, there is a shortage of the characterization factors of ILs for human toxicity and ecotoxicity impact categories, which prevent its inclusion within the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) step. Therefore, sufficient and complete life cycle inventory data for ionic liquids and precursor chemicals are essential for inventory analysis; and the LCIA needs to be clearly defined about the level of detail on the IL emissions. Current LCA studies on ILs have not covered all these aspects. To improve the present situation, it is proposed herein that for future LCA of processes involving ILs each of the LCA steps must be completed as far as scientific advances allow.

Greenhouse gases assessment of soybean cultivation steps in southern Brazil.

Abstract: This study presents a greenhouse gases emissions assessment of soybean cultivation in southern Brazil based on life cycle inventory. Although there are currently some studies on this topic, it is focused in the country level. Nevertheless, there are differences among the producing regions and it's estimated that for each 20 kg of soybeans produced in Brazil, one is produced in Rio Grande do Sul state. In a previous study, a life cycle inventory of soybean cultivated in this Brazilian state was developed, nevertheless, the influence of land use change along the life cycle was not taken into account. Therefore, the current study discusses the influence of direct land use change over the greenhouse gas emissions. The functional unit (FU) employed was 1 kg of soybean harvested for a cradle to gate study. For the soybean cultivation, in the scenario related to no land use change (scenario 1), 0.352 kg CO2/FU was emitted. This value increases up to 205% in scenario 2 (in this case, the actual scenario was that 15.4% of soybean cropland area replaced grassland) and 892% in scenario 3 (all land transformation was over forest). In scenario 1, soybean cultivation was responsible for the higher share of the greenhouse gases emissions (42%). The highest contributions in soybean cultivation for greenhouse gases emissions were: liming (37%), fertilization (19%) and seeding (9%).

Life Cycle Inventory for the agricultural stages of soybean production in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Abstract: Soybean is an important feedstock and its oil represents 70% of the raw material used for the production of Brazilian biodiesel. The main purposes of this work was to present a Life Cycle Inventory of soybean produced in Rio Grande do Sul, state in Brazil, based on primary data of agricultural soybean production in this region. Inventory data was collected in 23 municipalities that account for 32% of total soybean production. A Machinery Operation Modeling was suggested to adjust agricultural machinery inputs/outputs for harvesting under study. The soybean cultivation Life Cycle Inventory was divided into four stages and not as a black box. Based on questionnaire responses, it was possible to characterize some regional peculiarities of soybean production. For the estimation of Greenhouse Gas emissions from direct land use change and nitrous oxide emissions from soil, an assessment of soybean advancement over distinguished areas was performed. The results showed that for 15.4% of cultivated area from 1992/93 to 2012/13 transition from pasture to farming has occurred, mainly over rice and corn crops. It should be underscore that no evidence of soybean advances from forest to farming was found for the region. Moreover, this work considered nitrous oxide emissions from soil and a complete inventory was presented. Lastly, this works aims to offer soybean inventory data specifically to Rio Grande do Sul state and presents a new approach to perform environmental results related to agricultural life cycle assessment.

Integration of artificial intelligence methods and life cycle assessment to predict energy output and environmental impacts of paddy production.

Abstract: Prediction of agricultural energy output and environmental impacts play important role in energy management and conservation of environment as it can help us to evaluate agricultural energy efficiency, conduct crops production system commissioning, and detect and diagnose faults of crop production system. Agricultural energy output and environmental impacts can be readily predicted by artificial intelligence (AI), owing to the ease of use and adaptability to seek optimal solutions in a rapid manner as well as the use of historical data to predict future agricultural energy use pattern under constraints. This paper conducts energy output and environmental impact prediction of paddy production in Guilan province, Iran based on two AI methods, artificial neural networks (ANNs), and adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The amounts of energy input and output are 51,585.61MJkg-1 and 66,112.94MJkg-1, respectively, in paddy production. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to evaluate environmental impacts of paddy production. Results show that, in paddy production, in-farm emission is a hotspot in global warming, acidification and eutrophication impact categories. ANN model with 12-6-8-1 structure is selected as the best one for predicting energy output. The correlation coefficient (R) varies from 0.524 to 0.999 in training for energy input and environmental impacts in ANN models. ANFIS model is developed based on a hybrid learning algorithm, with R for predicting output energy being 0.860 and, for environmental impacts, varying from 0.944 to 0.997. Results indicate that the multi-level ANFIS is a useful tool to managers for large-scale planning in forecasting energy output and environmental indices of agricultural production systems owing to its higher speed of computation processes compared to ANN model, despite ANN's higher accuracy.

Environmental and economic assessment on 3D printed buildings with recycled concrete

Abstract: With increasing attention on sustainable development, 3D printing construction and recycled concrete have drawn extensive interest as emerging construction technology and novel building materials. At this intersection, we attempted to evaluate the environmental impact and economic benefit of 3D printed buildings made of recycled concrete employing life-cycle assessment tools. Goal and scope definition, materials and scenarios, life-cycle inventory analysis, life-cycle assessment impact, and interpretation were detailed based on the characteristics of concrete 3D printing to better quantify the sustainability potential of recycled concrete used in 3D printed buildings. We found that although increases in using recycled aggregate could produce less pollutant emissions, the environmental impact caused by 3D printing concrete construction is generally larger than traditional cast-in-situ concrete construction. This is because additional cement is required in the 3D printing process to maintain dependable concrete performance. From the economic perspective, 3D printing concrete construction technology has significant advantages over traditional cast-in-situ concrete construction, saving the heavy cost of formwork and labor. Such benefit is even more pronounced in geometrically irregular buildings. We also found that the cost of buildings made of recycled concrete decreased as the proportion of recycled aggregate increased, owing to the higher price of natural aggregate. This paper contributes to identifying key factors in the life-cycle evaluation of 3D printing construction with cementitious materials.

A systematic review of life cycle sustainability assessment: Current state, methodological challenges, and implementation issues.

Abstract: The life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is a tool to assess sustainability from a life cycle perspective, which has been receiving increased attention over the years. This work presents a systematic review of the current application of LCSA, presenting the foundations, main methods, current operationalization state, and major challenges to its broad implementation. The review protocol considered the search of keywords in Scopus and Web of Science databases. The search has considered the literature published or in the press until December 2018, resulting in the selection of 144 articles written in English. Of those, 71 articles operationalize LCSA in real case studies, while the remaining consist of review, viewpoint, and methodological development articles. This review demonstrates that the use of LCSA has been increasing in recent years. Today, the most applied approach is to consider LCSA as the sum of life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and social life cycle assessment because it is built on the methodologies that already exist and are under continuous development. However, the lack of harmonization of the methodology is a central challenge to its operationalization. Therefore, LCSA still requires further improvement in, among others, definition of coherent system boundaries, the development of robust databases to allow the assessment of economic and social perspectives, definition of impact categories that allow comparability between studies, development of impact assessment methods, development of methods to carry out uncertainty analysis, and communication strategies. Besides, further case studies should be developed to support the improvement of the methodology and a better understanding of the interaction of the environmental, economic, and social aspects.

Recent advances in biodiesel production from agricultural products and microalgae using ionic liquids: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract: Biodiesel is considered as a potential substitute for petroleum-based diesel fuel owing to its comparable properties to diesel. Biodiesel is generally produced from renewable sources such as agricultural products and microalgae in the presence of a suitable catalyst. Recently ionic liquid (IL) catalyzed synthesis of biodiesel has become a promising pathway to an eco-friendly production route for biodiesel. This review focuses on the use of ILs both as solvents as well as catalysts for sustainable biodiesel production from agricultural feedstocks and microalgae with high free fatty acid content. Reactions catalyzed by ILs are known to render high reactivity under the mild condition and high selectivity of ester product with simple separation steps. The article first discusses the state of the art of biodiesel production using ILs along with the physicochemical properties of the produced biodiesel. Then, current IL technologies were elucidated in terms of the categories such as acidic and basic ILs. The use of more advanced ILs such as supported ionic liquids and ionic liquid-enzyme catalysts on different biodiesel feedstocks were also discussed. Furthermore, the role of IL catalyst in intensified biodiesel production methods such as microwave and ultrasound technologies were also discussed. Finally, the prospects and challenges of IL catalyzed biodiesel production are discussed in this article. The review shows that ILs with bronsted acidity or basicity not only pose a low risk to the environment but also result in high biodiesel yields with mild reaction conditions in a short time. Bronsted acidic ILs can convert free fatty acids as well as triglycerides to biodiesel without the need for pretreatment, which facilitates in reducing the production cost of biodiesel. From the review, it can be concluded that ILs present great potential as catalysts for biodiesel production.

Black rice (Oryza sativa L.): a review of its historical aspects, chemical composition, nutritional and functional properties, and applications and processing technologies.

Abstract: Black rice is a variety of pigmented rice. It contains numerous nutritional and bioactive components, including essential amino acids, functional lipids, dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, anthocyanins, phenolic compounds, γ-oryzanols, tocopherols, tocotrienols, phytosterols and phytic acid. There have been several studies of black rice due to its alleged beneficial health effects when consumed regularly. This review focuses on the historical aspects, chemical composition, and nutritional and functional properties of black rice. Furthermore, a discussion of the development of new foods and beverages with applications and processing technologies designed to improve their quality attributes. The nutritional value of black rice means that it has the potential to be used in the production of healthy foods and beverages, such as functional products and gluten-free cereals, thereby providing extra health benefits to consumers.