Ecological and Economic Objective Functions for Screening in Integrated Development of Fine Chemical Processes. 1. Flexible and Expandable Framework Using Indices

Abstract

A general procedure for ecological and economic assessment during process design is presented. General objective functions to be used in the integrated development of fine chemical processes are defined. These are intended to accompany and guide process design from the very early design stages onward. The method uses three types of indices all based on simple mass balances. Mass balances are set up during the development, continually incorporating increasing complexity and knowledge. Correspondingly, mass-balance regions are extended from reaction to downstream processing and to waste treatment. Mass balances are systematically extended for multistep reactions. Mass-loss indices (MLI) are combined with ecological and economic weighing factors to yield environmental indices (EI) and economic indices (CI). Environmental indices are based on ABC-classification schemes related to environmental laws and regulations. Economic indices rely on raw material and waste treatment costs and may also include equipment and operating costs. These screening indices support condensed and lucid presentation and interpretation of mass-balance data and can be used as objective functions for the integrated development of chemical processes especially during the early design stage. Process examples are given in part 2 of this paper.

Photochemistry in synthesis: Where, when, and why

“…Actually, the examination should be extended to the precursors of the reagents used in order that the environmental potential is evaluated as completely as possible and, if this is the case, alternative syntheses are compared [7c]. Various methods have been proposed in order to take into account such factors [11][12][13][14]. In particular, Sheldon has proposed the use of the environmental quotient EQ, where E is the amount of waste produced per unit amount of the desired product and Q represents how environmentally undesirable such waste is, so that the EQ quantity expresses the environmental burden caused by that process [12].…”

Environmental Impact Analysis of Soybean Oil Production from Expelling, Hexane Extraction and Enzyme Assisted Aqueous Extraction

“…Heinzle et al, (1998) proposed the quntifiying methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts derived from chemical processing by calculating all input and outout components. Also, the Organization for Economic Co-operating and Development (OECD) proposed the environmental indicator to assess the sustainability of industrial processing in 2001.…”

“…Consequently, the general effect impact (GEI) were calculated as the ratio of EIp to MIp (Eq. 7) (Heinzle, et al, 1998).…”

LCA in Green Chemistry: a new subject area and call for papers

“…Nevertheless, several barriers and limitations regarding the use of LCA for GC exist, although they are not fundamentally different to those mentioned in other fields. These barriers include LCA being perceived as time-consuming and costly (Lancaster 2002), the lack of background inventory data for many chemicals (Wernet et al 2009;Hischier et al 2005), the lack of foreground data during the early stages of product development (Heinzle et al 1998), and the focus on "potential" impacts rather than "actual" impacts or risks (accidents, exceeding toxicity thresholds in the environment, etc.) (Askham 2012).…”