Carrejo et al. (2026): Quantifying atmospheric carbon removal at pulp and paper mills: a life cycle assessment across system boundaries
Edgar Carrejo, Rhonald Ortega, Kai Lan, Daniel L. Sanchez, Sunkyu Park and William Joe Sagues, IN: Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s43979-025-00156-5
The pulp and paper industry is a promising yet underexplored platform for large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) due to its use of biogenic feedstocks and production of concentrated CO₂ emissions from point sources. This study presents the first comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of retrofitting an amine-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) system into a representative virgin kraft pulp and paper mill in the Southeastern U.S. The authors evaluate carbon removal across five system configurations, applying both static and dynamic LCA methods under multiple functional units: CO₂ captured, biomass input, and paper output.