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METHODS FOR INTEGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS INTO CHEMICAL PROCESS DESIGN DECISIONS
Citation:
Shonnard, D. R., T. N. Rogers, D. A. Crowl, P. P. Radecki, AND J. R. Baker. METHODS FOR INTEGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS INTO CHEMICAL PROCESS DESIGN DECISIONS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-01/002, 2001.
Description:
The objective of this cooperative agreement was to postulate a means by which an engineer could routinely include environmental considerations in day-to-day conceptual design problems; a means that could easily integrate with existing design processes, and thus avoid massive retraining. The focus was on early stages of process design and equipment selection for projects ranging frm simple equipment replacements to entire new plant designs. The project was limited to development of a strategy for inclusion of environmental information and did not include scientific comparison of various methods and sources of this environmental information. Such comparison is an ongoing effort across the environmental science community and is expected to evolve over time. Moreover, results of such future efforts could be linked to the existing engineering design environment through the means postulated in this project.
The project results in the development of functional specifications for pre- and post-processor add-on modules to chemical process flowsheet simulators (CenCITT 1998 a-d). Functional specifications provide guidance in how to configure a software application. In addition to functional specifications, a complete sortware application would include 1) access to input data resources, and 2) an interface to a flowsheet simulator; neither of which were within the scope of this project. The objective of the pre-processor, called the Pollution Pvewntion Module (PPM), is to assure a conceptual process design engineer has 1) immediate, relevant information about all potential candidate technologies for a given applicaton and 2) access to design guidance that integrates cost, environment, and safety information. The objective of the post-processor, Pollution Assessment Module (PAM), is to provide a rapid means to make relative comparison of the cost, environmental impact, and safety of design choices. In addition to these functional specifications, various prototype modules were developed to facilitate the proof-of-concept tests, and while they may not be of commercial quality, they have proved useful in educational exercises and academic research.
As of 7/2000, the technology databases of the PPM are commercially available from the Center for Waste Reduction Technologies (CWRT) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the combined PPM/PAM functional specification has been transferred to a commercial software developer. In addition, numerous transfers of project results have been made via journal articles, theses, and technical presentations.