Chemical Engineering Approaches to Pollution Prevention

摘要

Minimization of the environmental impact of chemical manufacturing can be performed by one of two approaches: a) in-process waste minimization or b) "end-of pipe" pollution treatment. Historically in the U.S., well over 90% of environmental spending takes the form of the latter: however, waste minimization techniques have proven very effective in avoiding environmental problems. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the fundamentals of pollution prevention and give specific technical examples from a chemical manufacturing standpoint. Hopefully, some of the hard-won lessons from the U.S. experience will be useful to the chemical engineers of the People's Republic of China as they continue to expand the infrastructure for chemical manufacturing (Figure 1).