Environmental impacts of the hybrid method of paddy drying with rice husk and kerosene, compared to the conventional kerosene drying

Abstract

The hybrid drying system (HDS) for paddy was developed to use rice husk with kerosene. This study conducted a comparative life cycle assessment for HDS, kerosene drying system (KDS), and rice husk drying system (RDS) with 100 % rice husk. The functional unit was 1,000 kg of paddy at 14.5 % moisture content on a wet basis and impacts on global warming, acidification, human toxicity, and eutrophication were examined using ReCiPe 2008 assessment method in SimaPro software. The results indicate that KDS is more hazardous in many aspects, while RDS has the least impact. HDS can reduce the overall impact of KDS by 11.7 % and, with RDS, it is 42.0 %. Benefits can be further improved by simplifying HDS.