By Dr.

Agus Dwi Anggono

MOTIVATION
 Nitrogen is the first element of group 15 in the
periodic table and is classified as a nonmetal.
 The stable state of nitrogen is in the form of
diatomic gas N2
 Nitrogen can exist in multiple oxidation states
ranging from -3 in ammonia (NH3) to +5 in
nitrate (NO-3)
 Approximately 78.09% by volume of air is N2
 Nitrogen is also an essential nutrient for the
growth of plants that necessitates use of
fertilizers
MOTIVATION
 Nitrogen has also been associated with
many negative environmental impacts.
 The quality of water, destroyed fisheries,
and damaged the ocean ecosystem has
been caused by excessive nitrogen.
 Among other environmental impacts of
nitrogen is the contribution of N2O (nitrous
oxide) to the global warming potential.
 N2O is a 300 times more potent
greenhouse gas than CO2.
BACKGROUND ON FOOTPRINTS
 Footprints have become standard measures
for sustainability assessment.
 Ecological footprint is the measure of human
impact on the limited land resource.
 In this approach, human consumption is
converted into equivalent land area that is
required to provide these resources along with
area required to absorb the CO2 emissions
incurred because of consumption activities.
 The original concept of ecological footprint led
to the development of carbon footprint, water
footprint, one of the most recent entrants to
the footprint family is the nitrogen footprint.
BACKGROUND ON FOOTPRINTS
 Carbon footprint is calculated as the total
amount of GHG (Green house gas) emissions
in terms of an equivalent amount of CO2.
 The concept of carbon footprint is based on
the global warming potential of GHG
emissions.
 Carbon footprint define as “total amount of
direct and indirect CO2 emissions for a
process, product or system.”
 This definition limits the carbon footprint to
CO2 emissions only, whereas other definitions
include other greenhouse gases like methane
(CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).
 Most of the footprint measures originate
with a particular concern such as the roots
of “carbon footprint” and global warming.
 The water footprint is based on the concern
of scarcity of water for human
consumption.
 The water footprint concept captures the
total amount of water required to support
human consumption.
 This metric captures the sustainability of
human consumption based on availability
of water resource.
 The water footprint calculation is more
involved because it classifies water into
three different categories, blue, green,
and gray water footprint.
 The first two categories (blue and green
water footprints) are based on the
source or origin of water being
consumed.
 the last (gray water footprint) is based
on the pollution generated in the
process.
 The blue water footprint is defined as
the consumption of water originating in
blue water resources such as surface-
and groundwater.
 The green water footprint is defined as
the consumption of water that originates
in sources such as rainwater stored in
soil as soil moisture.
 The gray water footprint is the volume of
water that will be needed to dilute the
pollution of water bodies so that the
water bodies meet the water quality
standards.
 The total water footprint is calculated as
the sum of blue, green, and gray water
footprints.
 Calculations, data requirements, and
applications in detail as state-of-the-art
for water footprint calculations.
 Other considerations in calculations of
water footprints are the scale of study,
as in the case of carbon footprint
calculations. Water footprint can also be
calculated as process, product,
consumer, and geographical
 The most recent entrant in the family of
footprints is the nitrogen footprint.
 in the case of nitrogen footprint it is the
negative impact association with reactive
nitrogen losses to the environment that is
the motivation.
 This negative impact has led to several
previous efforts to develop farm scale and
regional and national nitrogen balances.
 It captures the total amount of nitrogen
losses attributable to human consumption
of various goods and services.
SCALE OF FOOTPRINTS
 The scale of footprints is dependent on
the scope of the study conducted.
 The decision can range from comparing
two products, processes, economies, or
regions (nation).
 The common use of footprints is to
compare the environmental impacts of
products, which is mostly performed on
the process scale or economy scale.
PROCESS SCALE
 The most common use of footprints is to
compare two processes or two products.
 all the inputs and outputs of a corn
farming process can be recorded and
specific flows associated with a chosen
footprint can be added together for the
process scale footprint reporting.
LIFE CYCLE FOOTPRINTS
 Life cycle analysis (LCA) is a method
that extends the boundary of study
beyond the immediate processes
associated with the products.
 The calculation method for the life cycle
footprint is similar to the process scale
footprint.
ECONOMIC INPUT-OUTPUT
FOOTPRINT
 The economic input-output (EIO)
footprint calculation is based on the EIO
model, which is an analytical framework
to capture the interconnections among
the processes in the economy.
HYBRID SCALE FOOTPRINT
 The hybrid scale footprint originates from the
boundary selection as in the case of hybrid
LCA.
 Hybrid LCA was developed to combine the
advantages of process-based LCA and EIO-
LCA.
 EIO-LCA has the disadvantage of using
average values for impact attributable to
aggregation of sectors.
 This leads to the difficulty of not being able to
compare two products on a fine scale because
the products belong to the same sector of the
economy
NITROGEN ACCOUNTING AND
FOOTPRINT
 The approach is a process scale mass
balance technique called “gross and net
nitrogen balances.”
 The “gross nitrogen balance” estimates the
total nitrogen input to soil and total nitrogen
output from soil. The gross balances include
all emissions to soil, air, and water.
 This involves exclusion of N volatilization and
denitrification from manure and fertilizer to
calculate net nitrogen balances.
 These nitrogen balances can be used as an
indicator for potential of environmental impacts
associated with nitrogen use.
ECO-LCA NITROGEN FOOTPRINT
FOR PRODUCTS
 The components of the Eco-LCA nitrogen
inventory can also be used to estimate the
nitrogen footprint for various products.
 The following steps describe the process of
calculating the nitrogen footprint using Eco-
LCA inventory:
 Identify the system boundary for impact calculation
of the product
 Collect Eco-LCA nitrogen inventory component data
 Obtain the monetary final demand on the
economic sector scale.
 Combine the process scale and economy scale data
CASE STUDY: COMPARISON OF ECO-LCA
NITROGEN FOOTPRINT FOR FUELS