A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Gasoline Blending with Different Oxygenates in India Sushil M. Chaudhari* and Rohit B. Meshram**† *Institute of Chemical Technology, Matunga, Mumbai-400019, India **CSIR National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur-831007, India †Corresponding author: Rohit B. Meshram; rohitmeshramiit@gmail.com ABSTRACT This paper includes a cradle-to-gate life cycle impact evaluation of gasoline blends in India. The potential environmental impacts of gasoline blends with three major components, i.e., methanol, ethanol, and n-butanol are assessed. The production of methanol from the natural gas reforming process, ethanol from hydrogenation with nitric acid, and n-butanol from the oxo process are considered in the current study. The results show that the gasoline blending with methanol has the lowest impact (11 categories) and is nearly constant from 5 to 15%. For gasoline with ethanol as an additive, the global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, and abiotic depletion potential rise with increasing ethanol addition. Meanwhile, increasing ethanol addition reduces the acidifcation potential and terrestric ecotoxicity potential impact of gasoline blends. Similarly, gasoline with n-butanol as an additive has higher acidifcation potential, eutrophication potential, human toxicity potential, terrestric ecotoxicity potential, marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential, and photochemical ozone creation potential compared to methanol and ethanol. INTRODUCTION India’s energy security has become a critical issue with major concerns about oil and other fossil fuel depletion, environ- mental issues (in particular climate change), reliance on for- eign sources, etc. Pollution is a major contributor to climate change. Many national and international policymakers are making reforms continuously to curtail pollution. Alcohol usage as an oxygenate fuel has the potential to reduce current emissions pollution occurring due to the properties of gaso- line and its content (Yusri et al. 2017, Surisetty et al. 2011). Mainly, methanol (CH 3 OH), ethanol (C 2 H 5 OH), n-butanol (C 4 H 9 OH), and dimethyl ether (C 2 H 6 O) were commonly used as potential fuels (Yusri et al. 2017). However, alcohol is a clean-burning fuel that has been blended into gasoline since 1980 (Chen et al. 2018). Because of its higher octane rating and high intramolecular oxygen concentration, it can be used as a fuel in machines that have a greater compression ratio and higher thermal effciency. However, due to the hydrophilic property of alcohol, it leads to phase separation, which is a major diffculty in alcohol blended fuels, causing operational problems and engine damage. Different blending agents have been reported by researchers to avoid methanol-gasoline phase separation (Karaosmanoglu et al. 2000). It has proven scientifc records for methanol to blends of M5 to M100 (Sheehy et al. 2010, Yuen et al. 2010) and ethanol to blends of E5, E10, and E85 (Shirvani et al. 2020) where M and E represent the percent- age of methanol and ethanol in the blend and remaining is gasoline. Multiple researchers have reported that the blending of alcohol with gasoline can minimize air pollution. Alcohol emits lesser pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), SOx, and particulate matter compared to gasoline (Canakci et al. 2013, Yanju et al. 2008). The environmental impact of any fuel was observed in two conditions, one is during production and the second during vehicular emission or combustion. In India, similar to China, the majority of coal to methanol process is feasible due to the abundance of coal (Saraswat & Bansal 2017). Hence, the scientifc community and government authori- ties considered oxidative additives as oxygen for the energy sector, with the goal of reducing foreign dependency in the future. Out of multiple oxygenates, methanol and ethanol prove low-cost sustainable options for gasoline blending (Shirvani et al. 2020, Saraswat & Bansal 2017). There are mainly two sources reported for the production of methanol, i.e., natural gas, and coal. Natural gas (NG) to methanol emits much carbon dioxide per unit of energy used as gasoline. Whereas, methanol produced from coal produces double carbon dioxide, even if emission remains 2021 pp. 1947-1958 Vol. 20 p-ISSN: 0972-6268 (Print copies up to 2016) No. 5 (Suppl) Nature Environment and Pollution Technology An International Quarterly Scientifc Journal Original Research Paper e-ISSN: 2395-3454 Open Access Journal Nat. Env. & Poll. Tech. Website: www.neptjournal.com Received: 16-02-2021 Revised: 20-04-2021 Accepted: 25-05-2021 Key Words: Gasoline Methanol Ethanol n-butanol Life cycle assessment Original Research Paper https://doi.org/10.46488/NEPT.2021.v20i05.010