Luigi D’Elia has been a Sustainability Consultant, LCA and Social LCA Analyst at eLoop since 2021. His academic background is rooted in Biological Sciences and has progressively evolved towards industrial biotechnology and quantitative sustainability assessment. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences (Pathophysiology) from the University of Naples Federico II in 2014, Luigi completed a Master’s degree in Biology (Biosafety) in 2016, graduating with highest honours (110/110) with a thesis on the identification and characterisation of bioactive compounds extracted from Galdieria sulphuraria. In 2021, he obtained a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Naples Federico II, focusing on the development of microalgal biorefinery processes for the production of heat-stable antioxidants for the food industry.
At eLoop, Luigi analyses environmental, social and economic impacts across the life cycle of products, processes and systems, with particular expertise in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) and Life Cycle Thinking approaches applied to emerging technologies. He contributes to every stage of sustainability studies, from goal and scope definition to life cycle inventory collection, system modelling, interpretation of results and identification of environmental and social hotspots. His work also includes projects involving industrial biotechnology, algal biomass, waste management, carbon capture and CO₂ mineralisation technologies, plastics and bioplastics. Among the projects he is most proud of is REMADYL, where he contributed to the LCA of innovative technologies for PVC recovery and rejuvenation. The results were presented at two major international conferences in 2023: the European Congress of Chemical Engineering / European Congress of Applied Biotechnology (ECCE/ECAB) in Berlin and the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) Conference in Leiden.
He also led the LCA and Social LCA activities for the A4IBD project, focused on evaluating algae-based value chains for food and pharmaceutical applications. The project was presented at the Algae4IBD – Algae for Health in Food and Pharma conference in Dublin in 2026. In addition, he contributed to the BRINE-CARB project, assessing innovative technologies for brine treatment and CO₂ capture and mineralisation.
Alongside his consulting and research activities, Luigi regularly delivers lectures, seminars and university teaching in industrial biotechnology and biology courses. He has also lectured in the BIOCIRCE Master’s Programme (2026) and in technical and scientific training programmes organised by accredited institutions such as EITD in Naples. His teaching reflects his commitment to making sustainability assessment accessible and applicable across environmental, social and economic dimensions of emerging technologies and innovative industrial processes.
His scientific publications include studies on the extraction of heat-stable antioxidants from photoautotrophic microorganisms published in World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology (2021) and ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2021), the latter focusing on selective extraction using switchable solvents from Synechococcus bigranulatus. He is also co-author of a paper published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2019) on pressurised fluid technologies for antioxidant extraction within a biorefinery framework, and a study published in Molecules (2023) on the recovery of high-value compounds from Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. Luigi has presented his research at numerous international scientific conferences, including the Algae4IBD – Algae for Health in Food and Pharma Innovation & Industry Summit (Dublin, 2026), the 4th National Conference on Microalgae organised by AISAM (Florence, 2024), the 14th European Congress of Chemical Engineering / 7th European Congress of Applied Biotechnology (ECCE/ECAB) (Berlin, 2023), the 11th International Conference on Industrial Ecology (ISIE) (Leiden, 2023), and the AlgaEurope Conference (Paris, 2019).