Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 131 (2020) 109981 Available online 7 July 2020 1364-0321/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Integrated sustainability analysis of combustion engines (ISACE) as an alternative to classical combustion analysis Meisam Tabatabaei a, b, c, d, ** , Homa Hosseinzadeh-Bandbafha e , Mortaza Aghbashlo e, *** , Abdul-Sattar Nizami f, * a Henan Province Engineering Research Center for Forest Biomass Value-added Products, School of Forestry, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China b Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia c Biofuel Research Team (BRTeam), Karaj, Iran d Microbial Biotechnology Department, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII), Agricultural Research, Education, and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran e Department of Mechanical Engineering of Agricultural Machinery, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran f Sustainable Development Study Centre, Government College University, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Conventional combustion analysis Internal combustion engines Life cycle assessment Environmental impact Integration Decision-making ABSTRACT A great deal of efforts has been put into enhancing the effciency of internal combustion engines as the main contributors to environmental and health problems faced worldwide. Several well-known discrete performance and emission indicators are frequently used to evaluate and compare new designs, engine modifcations, and fuel formulations. However, conventional analysis of performance and, more importantly, emission parameters is subjective because the magnitude and rating of harmfulness of the investigated indices are not equivalent to each other. Moreover, this type of analysis does not take into account the background information of the fuel for- mulations under investigation, or in other words, it is solely focused on the combustion stage. These introduce biases into the decision-making process. To address these challenges, we introduce an integration of conventional combustion analysis data with the life cycle assessment approach, namely Integrated Sustainability Analysis of Combustion Engines (ISACE). More specifcally, frst, background data of fuel formulations (cradle to tank) and combustion outputs (performance and emission parameters under different engine conditions) are converted into human health, ecosystem, climate change, and resources endpoint damage categories. In better words, the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) quantifes the fuel production and combustion data into a manageable number, i. e., endpoints and facilitates the understanding and evaluation of the magnitude and signifcance of their po- tential environmental impacts. Finally, these endpoints having different units will be weighed and combined to achieve a single environmental score or total weighted environmental impact. This single ISACE score can now be an objective basis for the decision-making process. Internal combustion engines are considered as the primary con- sumers of fossil fuels [1] and, therefore, largely contribute to the currently faced environmental and health challenges such as air pollu- tion, global warming, and climate change [2,3]. In light of that, numerous efforts have been put into increasing the effciency of these energy conversion systems including engine modifcations and innovations (e.g., homogeneous charge compression ignition, turbo- chargers, variable valve timing, hybrid powertrains [4]), waste heat recovery techniques, as well as the development of various novel fuel formulations and additives. Conventionally, to assess and compare new designs, fuel formulations, and additives, discrete combustion analysis is performed [5]. In better words, the amounts of regulated emissions in * Corresponding author. ** Corresponding author. Henan Province Engineering Research Center for Forest Biomass Value-added Products, School of Forestry, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China. *** Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: meisam_tab@yahoo.com, meisam_tabatabaei@uitm.edu.my (M. Tabatabaei), maghbashlo@ut.ac.ir (M. Aghbashlo), nizami_pk@yahoo.com, asnizami@gcu.edu.pk (A.-S. Nizami). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/rser https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.109981 Received 5 September 2019; Received in revised form 3 April 2020; Accepted 8 June 2020