Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing, and Techno-economic Assessment of Pulse Processing Technologies

Among agri-food products, pulse-based proteins – in particular, pea-based protein - have attracted strong interest recently, leading to major investments to build fractionation plants in the Canadian prairies. There is growing expectation that new plant-based protein products will feature environmental labels and that their manufacturing will become more sustainable by reducing resource utilization and improving the efficiency of the value chain. Such efforts must necessarily be supported by credible, transparent, and publicly available data sets and models. The successful candidate, under the co-supervision of Dr. Nathan Pelletier (UBC) and Dr. Farid Bensebaa (NRC) will collaborate with pulse industry stakeholders to develop detailed life cycle inventory and costing models for key pulse processing pathways. These will subsequently be utilized to undertake life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and techno-economic studies of each pathway. The candidate will be based at UBC (Okanagan Campus), but will also travel to collaborate with pulse industry participants and NRC researchers. The models will be made publicly available through the Canadian Agri-food Life Cycle Data Centre (www.caldc.ca). FOR DETAILED APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS, SEE THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS PAGE AT www.prismlab.weebly.com.