ABSTRACT
In the last few years, the worldwide population growth has increased the demand of goods and services; this fact has helped economic sector development but, at the same time, has augmented the generation of waste biomass. This residual biomass usually causes a pollution problem due to its elevated volume and low degradation rates. Due to this, valorization methods have been proposed in order to extract value-added components or produce new products, such as biofuels, from waste biomass. Nevertheless, this revalorization is not necessarily environmental friendly. In this context, life cycle analysis is a valuable tool to evaluate the impacts of these processes, identifying those that have great impacts and the opportunity areas to improve them. Therefore, this chapter is focused on the application of life cycle analysis for waste valorization. First, basic concepts related to waste biomass and its valorization methods are presented. Later, a revision of the literature where life cycle analysis is applied to waste valorization is analyzed in order to identify the future trends in this area.
