Industrial Symbiosis for Greener Horticulture Practices: The CO2 Enrichment from Energy Intensive Industrial Processes

Carbon dioxide (CO2) enrichment in controlled environmental conditions has proved to enhance the growth and production of a wide variety of crops. Previous studies suggested that the use of this horticulture practice in greenhouses may represent a useful opportunity for the capture and utilization of industrial CO2 emissions. The symbiosis among industrial installations and horticulture facilities may in fact allow to reduce the overall amounts of CO2 released in the atmosphere, by reusing the direct production of carbon dioxide into crop enrichment processes. The present study provides a quantitative analysis of the economic benefits related to the use of CO2 emissions generated by an industrial activity into a nearby greenhouse facility. The analysis takes into account the savings related to the reuse of carbon emissions from the industrial process, and the additional revenues due to the increase of the yield of products from the horticulture activity. Since the results of the enrichment process strictly depend on the specific crop, the analysis was conducted by comparing three different cultivations, viz. tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries. The outcomes showed that, for the considered case study, the total benefits related to the implementation of the symbiosis network could reach up to 8.1 € per square meter of cultivated soil per each production cycle, and would also allow to capture up to the 21% of the overall carbon dioxide emissions produced by the industrial process.