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GREENER CHEMICAL PROCESS DESIGN ALTERNATIVES ARE REVEALED USING THE WASTE REDUCTION DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM (WAR DSS)
Citation:
Young*, D AND J. K. Saxe**. GREENER CHEMICAL PROCESS DESIGN ALTERNATIVES ARE REVEALED USING THE WASTE REDUCTION DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM (WAR DSS). Presented at EnviroSoft 2002, Bergen, Norway, 5/6-8/2002.
Description:
The Waste Reduction Decision Support System (WAR DSS) is a Java-based software product providing comprehensive modeling of potential adverse environmental impacts (PEI) predicted to result from newly designed or redesigned chemical manufacturing processes. The purpose of this software is to allow chemical process designers to incorporate targeted environmental data as criteria in decision-making when evaluating alternative design otions. WAR DSS expands on the current implementation of the WAR algorithm that is incorporated into commercial chemical process simulation software packages used for designing chemical processes. The prediction of PEIs includes indices for chemicals' contributions to environmental problems ranging from global to local, respectively: global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain production, smog formation, nutrification of wate bodies, and toxicity to humans and animals. Data for approximately five thousand different chemicals are included. The range of experimental data available among chemicals is widely varied. Models were developed to enrich the available experimental data with estimated chemical data, and the chemical fate, potential exposure, and final scoring models allow several different levels of sophistication to provide robust decision support despite inhomogeneity in data availability. Design of the WAR DSS database, user interfaces, and model functionality was reformulated from the first implementation of the WAR algorithm based on reported user preferences in using DSSs. The result of imcreasing the number o chemicals supported, expanding and refining the impact assessment modeling, and redesigning the user interfaces will be to encourage more extensive use of the WAR DSS guidance in making process design decisions, and improving the quality of environmental health-based decisions.