Comparative environmental and economic assessment of nicotine extraction from tobacco leaves: Mechanochemical vs maceration processes at laboratory scale

Tobacco plants are grown worldwide by thousands of families who are financially dependent on the crop for cigarette production. The stricter tobacco laws force these producers to find alternatives to sell this product. In addition, in this regard, the European Union must look to develop its own greener processes giving at the same time independence from eastern countries. Nearly 50 % of the current overall market for nicotine, which is being used, as a bioactive compound, comes from China. The present study compares the environmental life cycle impacts of different methods to extract nicotine from tobacco leaves (the maceration and the mechanochemical process). These have been compared with an ecoefficiency analysis in terms of environmental performance (with life cycle assessment methodology), financial performance (with an economic analysis of the operational costs) and assessing energy consumption as a transversal indicator. The maceration process would be more advisable in the case that energy supply is considered a limiting resource. Even though, this might be compensated using solar panels or other renewable energy sources. In addition, the mechanochemical process achieves higher nicotine extraction rate (1.91 wt%) than the maceration process (1.78 wt%). After the complete evaluation, it has been concluded that the highest nicotine extraction rate of the mechanochemical process compensates for its higher energy consumption. Therefore, when considering the whole life-cycle, the mechanochemical process presents about 7 % lower environmental impacts and slightly better (2 %) economic balance than the maceration process. • Mechanochemical process has a higher nicotine extraction rate (1.91 wt%). • The mechanochemical process is about 7 % better in environmental performance. • Mechanochemical process consumes 2.21 times more electricity at lab scale. • The economic results are slightly better (2 %) for the mechanochemical process. • Using forecasted electricity mixes has higher impact on the mechanochemical process.