Comparative environmental impact analysis of techniques for cleaning wood wine barrels

We compare four techniques that are commonly used for cleaning and disinfection of oak wine barrels with 225 l of capacity used in the red wine aging process through a life cycle analysis (LCA). The analysed techniques were pressurised water (at 90 °C) plus sulphur dioxide (SO2) wick (7.5 g per barrel), water vapour (at 105 °C) plus sulphur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3) (4 ppm), and carbon dioxide (CO2) (50 kg/h for 180 s). The results showed that the barrel cleaning technique with the lowest impact on all water scarcity indexes and is the carbon dioxide, due mainly to low water usage. However, in the global warming category, carbon dioxide technology is the technique that has the greatest environmental impact with a value of 4.080 kg CO2 per cleaned barrel, due mainly to CO2 and air consumption. [Display omitted] •Dry ice application is the best technique saving water in cleaning oak barrels compared to SO2 and O3•Using O3 can save 98,496,000 L of water per year for clean 1,368,000 oak wine barrels•Vapour+SO2 technique has the highest environmental impact in all categories for cleaning barrels•CO2 and Vapour+SO2 techniques have a highest environmental impact in global warning category compared to other techniques