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POLLUTION PREVENTION IN THE EARLY STAGES OF HIERARCHICAL PROCESS DESIGN
Citation:
Smith*, R L. POLLUTION PREVENTION IN THE EARLY STAGES OF HIERARCHICAL PROCESS DESIGN. Presented at AiCHe National Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, 11/15/2000.
Description:
Hierarchical methods are often used in the conceptual stages of process design to synthesize and evaluate process alternatives. In this work, the methods of hierarchical process design will be focused on environmental aspects. In particular, the design methods will be coupled to the framework of the WAste Reduction (WAR) algorithm. The WAR algorithm calculates a balance of potential environmental impact around a chemical process, including eight impact categories (e.g., acid rain potential, human toxicity by ingestion potential). The impact scores depend on the severity of the impacts that the chemicals cause. These scores are multiplied by the amount of each pollutant to obtain a total value for the impact category. Thus, pollutants that are very unfriendly to the environment are given higher scores, and it takes only a small amount of such a chemical to match the impact for a larger amount of a less severe pollutant. The emphasis that the WAR algorithm places on pollutants being unequal in their generation of potential environmental impact means that designs generated using the method will focus not on the total amount of pollution, but rather the total mount of impact. The results presented will show how the use of WAR leads to changes in the early stages of process design, and these alternatives will be examined through examples.