Processes Intensification for Sustainability: Prospects and Opportunities

Abstract

Nowadays, any industrial process must not only respond to market requirements but also be sustainable. Process intensification (PI) offers promising opportunities toward enhancing the process performance while addressing sustainability objectives. Intensified process design and technologies take various forms including reduction in consumption of natural resources, increase in efficiency, decrease in physical size, increase in throughput, and reduction in environmental emissions. Thus, PI offers new opportunities for more sustainable processes. In this perspective article, the background, challenges, and opportunities of PI are presented to help identify options that lead to enhanced sustainability. The paper will also discuss emerging tools that can help intensify conventional processes and achieve a more sustainable performance.

High-Temperature Hydrothermal Extraction of Phenolic Compounds from Brewer’s Spent Grain and Malt Dust Biomass Using Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents

“…Driven by Green Chemistry principles [1] and EU Sustainable Development Goals 2030 [2], considerable research efforts are focused on creating circular processes to replace traditional 'linear' industrial production methods in an attempt to intensify industry: more production with less energy, less resources, and less waste [3,4]. A major contributor to this transition is the valorisation of waste materials and side streams, particularly biomass side streams from the agricultural and food industries.…”

Computational Chemistry as Applied in Environmental Research: Opportunities and Challenges

“…1,2 However, their associated byproducts and waste generation have unintentional detrimental effects on the environment, ecology, and human health. 3,4 An estimated nine million worldwide deaths per year have been directly linked to environmental pollution, notwithstanding its detrimental effects on ecosystems. 5,6 Current environmental research efforts focus on mitigating these impacts.…”

“…Chemical innovations have played a crucial role in shaping and constructing our modern society, significantly contributing to its development and progress. , However, their associated byproducts and waste generation have unintentional detrimental effects on the environment, ecology, and human health. , An estimated nine million worldwide deaths per year have been directly linked to environmental pollution, notwithstanding its detrimental effects on ecosystems. , Current environmental research efforts focus on mitigating these impacts. − Biological and physicochemical techniques, such as adsorption, advanced oxidation processes, reduction, photocatalysis, and chemical or biological oxidation, have been developed to degrade recalcitrant pollutants along with analytical techniques that are able to track minimal concentrations of chemicals in the environment. − Exploring and understanding the interaction of pollutants with the environment, reaction and adsorption mechanisms, properties of catalysts, and development of predictive models for toxicity and reactivity are aspects that can guide technologies aiming to mitigate environmental contamination. Computational and experimental chemistry can work in synergy to impact several areas, including drug discovery, synthetic chemistry, , energy, environmental chemistry, and materials science. − Theoretical calculations can study the properties of molecules at the atomic level and simulate the behavior of complex systems without the necessity of performing specific experiments …”