## 3 Results and Discussion
### Life Cycle Assessment Results
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the general trend of normalized scores does not seem to mirror their corresponding impact scores. For ReCiPe, after normalization, it appears that _fossil resource scarcity_ exhibits a far lower relative score in comparison with _freshtwater ecotoxicity_, indicating that the latter category imparts a more significant impact than the \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Impact Category** & **Impact Assessment Method** & **Score** \\ \hline Fossil resource scarcity & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 0.21367 kg oil eq. \\ Terrestrial ecotoxicity & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 0.00435 kg 1,4-DCB \\ Freshwater ecotoxicity & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 0.00110 kg 1,4-DCB \\ Water consumption & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 0.00033 m\({}^{3}\) \\ Human carcinogenic toxicity & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 0.00020 kg 1,4-DCB \\ Marine ecotoxicity & ReCiPe Midpoint (H) 2016 & 3.8 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-5}\) kg 1,4-DCB \\ \hline Freshwater ecotoxicity & ILCD 2011 Midpoint & 0.54024 CTU\({}_{e}\) * \\ Water resource depletion & ILCD 2011 Midpoint & 5.4 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-5}\) m\({}^{3}\) \\ Mineral, fossil and resource depletion & ILCD 2011 Midpoint & 7.6 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-8}\) kg Sb eq. \\ Human toxicity, cancer effects & ILCD 2011 Midpoint & 4.2 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-10}\) CTU\({}_{h}\) * \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* CTU\({}_{e}\) and CTU\({}_{h}\) denote comparative toxic units for the ecosystem and comparative toxic units for humans, respectively.  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Impact scores for the entire cellulose extraction process in the current study. former. Indeed, the impact exhibited by _fossil resource scarcity_ is not substantially higher than even _human carcinogenic toxicity_ and _marine ecotoxicity_. On the other hand, the impacts exerted by both _terrestrial ecotoxicity_ and _water consumption_ can be construed as negligible in the grand scheme of things. The normalization results of ReCiPe are echoed by ILCD, in which _freshwater ecotoxicity_ exhibits the most significant impact by far, followed by _human toxicity and cancer effects._  
Figure 4 shows the comparative weighted impact category scores by using the ILCD 2011 Midpoint impact assessment method for the cellulosic extraction process. Likewise, the general trend of weighted scores qualitatively mirrors their corresponding normalized scores in which _freshwater ecotoxicity_ exhibits the most substantial impact. In the context of NaDES-microwave cellulosic extraction, qualitative similarity for both normalization and weighting is perhaps due to the ILCD method's structured approach to evaluating environmental impacts comprehensively. This alignment highlights the method's capacity  
Figure 3: Comparative normalized impact category scores by using (**a**) ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) and (**b**) ILCD 2011 Midpoint assessment methods for the cellulosic extraction process. to provide a sensible evaluation of environmental performance, guiding extraction scientists toward sustainable practices and emphasizing areas for improvement in the cellulose extraction process. In our extraction process, the emission of lignocellulosic-based wastewater represents an environmental issue, as reflected in our LCA results. Such lignocellulosic residues would be infused into the sediment systems in water bodies, causing copious concentrations of toxic organic waste to accumulate at the bottoms of rivers and lakes [19]. These polluted sediments are contaminated with assortments of organic and inorganic pollutants, posing a severe threat to both public and ecological health. To mitigate this issue, lignocellulosic residues could be extracted from wastewater streams and treated via a myriad of physico-chemical or even biological treatment techniques [20]. At this juncture, it should be noted that when scaling up LCA parameters from small functional units, such as 1 g of biomass, to greater quantities, linear scaling is frequently assumed at first.