Design of Sustainable Processes: Systematic Generation Evaluation of Alternatives

摘要

In order to address the sustainability of chemical processes various methodologies have been proposed in the past decade. The objective of this paper is to describe a systematic methodology for sustainable chemical process design and, a software tool, called SustainPro, which employs this a methodology to improve the sustainability of existing processes as well as new processes. The developed methods and tools are able to generate, screen and then identify sustainable alternatives in any chemical process by locating the operational, environmental, economical and safety related bottlenecks inherent in the process. It can be applied to a wide range of processes such as refineries, gas processing, pharmaceutical processes, etc, operating in batch as well as continuous modes. The application of the methodology and software is highlighted with a case study related to a gas processing application.