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A methodology for integrating
sustainability considerations into
process design
Azapagic, A., Millington, A., and Collett, A.(2006)
Trans IChemE, Chemical Engineering Research and Design,
84(A6), 439-452
Outline
Introduction
2. Methodology for process design for sustainability
(PDfS)
1.
1)
2)
3)
Project initiation
preliminary design
detailed design
Project initiation
preliminary design
1. Introduction
Traditionally, process design has been guided by technical and micro-
economic decision criteria to ensure that plants are fit for purpose and
that the financial returns are maximized. Two dimensions of sustainability
(environmental and social) must also become an integral part of process
design (Azapagic et al. 2004a).
()
Designing sustainable processes requires a system approach whereby
the process are considered in considerable detail, their origin upstream and
destination downstream are usually not included within the system
boundary.
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concerned with the other stages in the life cycle of the plant, i.e.,
construction and decommissioning. ()
This paper proposes a general methodology for process design for
stakeholders ()
When it is still not clear what design alternatives exist and which sustainability
issues may be relevant for each alternative, the designer can only identify and
use sustainability design criteria that are generally applicable to most
processes.
criteria ()
()
Preliminary design
In traditional process design, this stage normally involves selection
emissions to air, water and land and are obtained directly from the
flowsheet and material and energy balances. These can be translated into
potential environmental impacts by multiplying the burdens by their
potency factors. ()
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Detailed design
Detailed design involves detailed equipment design, detailed
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1.
2.
3.
4.
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VCM.
VCM process
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needed.
()
Cost reduction and
profitability
improvement would be
carried out in the
detailed design.
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Identifying the hot spots to find out which parts in the system contribute most
to the impacts and targeting these for maximum improvements.
(,)
Optimizing on environmental objectives of interest (e.g., energy use, global
warming or toxicity) to minimize the impacts from the whole system.
Comparing the proposed design with an existing VCM plant or industry average.
()
Comparing the proposed design with other chemical plants in the same or a
related sector. ()
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are relatively small as there are few direct discharges from the
process. ()
Further improvement of the design should be directed towards the
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impacts in the whole life cycle of the VCM production so that it could be
argued that this design is as environmentally sustainable as possible given
the system constraints.
()
Linking the environmental and economic performance: for example, for
every pound of value added per tonne of VCM, 658 MJ of energy and 15.8
kg of oil eq. are consumed and 34 kg of CO2 are emitted.
()
The approach to evaluating sustainability of process industries is also
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