Development of sustainable green ink using agricultural biomass-derived green carbon: functional and environmental perspectives

Abstract

The development of sustainable green ink (GI) using biomass derived green carbon (GC) as a pigment offers a sustainable alternative to traditional carbon black-based formulations. The developed GI exhibited better waterproofing than commercial ink, as measured by ImageJ profile analysis, and demonstrated significant antibacterial efficacy with a 15.7 mm zone of inhibition. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to examine the environmental performance of GI manufacturing and to compare GC with conventional carbon black (CB) at the pigment level, while accounting for the proprietary characteristics of commercial ink compositions. The findings demonstrate that GC production has lower climatic and fossil resource impacts than CB, attributed to the use of agricultural residue as a renewable feedstock and to internal energy recovery during pyrolysis. Contribution analysis indicates that electricity consumption is the primary environmental hotspot for both GC synthesis and GI formulation, significantly affecting toxicity and eutrophication effect categories. Sensitivity analysis confirms that fluctuations in electricity demand led to approximately linear changes in various midpoint impacts, while the relative hierarchy of impact categories remains consistent. This study demonstrates that replacing fossil derived carbon black with biomass derived green carbon can mitigate climate and resource burdens without causing additional formulation-level effects, while highlighting the need for energy efficient processing and cleaner electricity sources to fully harness the sustainability potential of green ink technologies.