Life cycle inventory analysis for parboiled rice production in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Approximately 70% of the paddy production in Sri Lanka goes through the parboiling process. e parboiling treatment process require energy, water and other resources extracted from the environment and after the process add emissions, effluents and wastes back to environment which adverse environmental impacts. In order to identify the total environmental performance of this production process, a life cycle environmental impact assessment is required. To facilitate this assessment a Life Cycle Inventory analysis (LCI) needs to be carried out In this study, the LCI analysis for parboiled rice production is presented considering the system boundary from paddy harvesting step to cooking step. The total environmental interventions of parboiled rice production mainly depend on the method employed in the production process. The inventory of two parboiling methods namely, hot soaking method and cold soaking method are considered. The results show that energy consumption and its associated environmental emissions are high for hot soaking methods. The wastewater effluent inventory shows a high value in the cold soaking method.