Sustainability in Chemical Processes: Application of different environmental methodologies to evaluate process alternatives

摘要

Due to the lack of resources and the limits allowed to the environmental impacts, new algorithms have been proposed to analyze chemical processes regarding their environmental impacts. This paper describes a methodology to analyze/review environmental impact methods in order to conclude about their range of application, strengths and weaknesses. As a starting point, two tools were analyzed - Waste Reduction (WAR) algorithm and ReCiPe. To evaluate them, each tool was applied to three case studies of industrial processes (azeotropic distillation of acetone/chloroform, HDA process and MTBE production). For each case study two alternatives were available, a base case and an improved solution, which aimed to be more sustainable.