| Abstract | For holistic and concise decision support, it is essential to assess the sustainability of pea protein production pathways from the technical, economic, and environmental perspectives. Although regarded as the most sustainable protein extraction process, sustainability assessment of different dry fractionation pathways has not yet been carried out. To address this limitation, this study carried out a comparative techno-eco-environmental assessment of three different dry fractionation scenarios, a baseline, and two pathways with upstream pre-treatment methods of Radio Frequency (RF) treatment and Infrared Radiation (IR) treatment. Process Separation Efficiency (PSE), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Techno-economic Assessment (TEA) were performed. Findings from the study showed that the RF-treated and IR-treated pea seeds produce higher yields of protein concentrates with higher protein content, as compared to the baseline. However, the higher protein separation efficiency could not comparatively offset the capital costs, processing costs, and higher energy demand associated, causing it to be outperformed by the baseline, in the economic and environmental dimensions. Although the IR treatment pathway performed better than RF treatment environmentally, it performed the least at the economic criteria. Overall, performance levels carried out using economic and protein quality value improvement for eco-efficiency assessment showed that it is very salient to consider all these three criteria integratively when assessing the sustainability performance of protein extraction pathways to identify trade-offs amongst the different dimensions. Moreover, competitive advantage played a key role in the eco-efficiency performance levels. We therefore recommend that further studies to be conducted including the product techno-functionality for a broader and more holistic perspective. |
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