Sustainable Process Intensification Using Building Blocks

Abstract

Process intensification (PI) is a design concept that offers innovative solutions for making a substantial improvement in terms of cost, energy efficiency, emission, environmental footprint, processing volume, and safety of a chemical process. Incorporation of PI principles at the conceptual design stage can pave the way for more sustainable solutions. However, it is not trivial to identify effective intensification pathways considering the various trade-offs between multiple conflicting performance metrics. To that end, we combine the building block-based systematic PI (Demirel, Li, and Hasan, Comp. Chem. Eng., 2017, 150, 2–38) with the ε-constraint-based multiobjective optimization to synthesize both economically attractive and environmentally sustainable chemical process systems. We successfully apply this approach to discover several novel intensification pathways for an industrially relevant chemical process for ethylene glycol production. These new pathways suggest nonintuitive flowsheets involving partial intensification, as opposed to complete merging of reaction and separation phenomena. Partial intensification significantly increases the return on investment while reducing the indirect CO2 emissions when compared to traditional nonintensified and intensified designs.

Computer‐aided process intensification of natural gas to methanol process

“…Because of this phenomena scale representation, building block can generate novel designs without any postulation of candidate designs beforehand. For this reason, building block‐based approach has been implemented to several design and synthesis problems recently 48,51–55 …”

Data‐driven approximation of thermodynamic phase equilibria

“…53,54 Detailed description of building block-based representation method can be found elsewhere. [55][56][57] Here, we briefly describe on how the VLE separation is represented and modeled in building block. Figure 5A For instance, by using just two blocks, we can represent a single tray of a distillation column.…”

Advancements in Optimization and Control Techniques for Intensifying Processes

“…Then, the most promising phenomena-based structures are transformed into unit operations [5,21]. Recent advancements using the PBBs methodology include the synthesis and intensification of the production of dimethyl carbonate with CO 2 utilization with consideration of operational feasibility, economics, life cycle assessment factors, and sustainability criteria [22], the dehydration of ethanol through a membrane-assisted distillation process (taking into account an economic criterion) [23], the transesterification of propylene carbonate with methanol to generate dimethyl carbonate and 1,2-propanediol (considering an economic criterion) [24], the intensification of the aldolization of an ethylene glycol and 1,2-butanediol mixture with acetaldehyde to produce 2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane and 4-ethyl-2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane [25], the esterification of isoamyl alcohol with acetic acid for the production of isoamyl acetate and the aldolization of ethylene glycol and 1,2-butanediol with acetaldehyde for the production of 2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane and 4-ethyl-2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane (taking into consideration an inherent safety assessment in addition to economic and sustainability criteria) [26], the production of ethylene glycol through the hydrolysis of ethylene oxide using an ε-constraint-based multiobjective optimization framework [27], the production of dimethyl ether from methanol (considering energy, CO 2 emissions, and sustainability indicators) [28], and the production of ethyl lactate from ethanol and lactic acid (considering economic, environmental, sustainability, and inherent safety criteria) [29]. In addition, Garg et al [30] presented the key concepts and step-by-step workflow of the phenomena-based intensification method for hybrid separation schemes along with a summary of published case studies with novel solutions for chemical and biochemical processes.…”

“…This approach was applied for several cases, including a reactive distillation process to produce ethylene glycol from ethylene oxide and water [49]. Recent works include the synthesis and intensification for the separation of a ternary mixture consisting of benzene, toluene, and o-xylene [50], the generation of various flowsheets from the block superstructure including the hydrodealkylation of toluene to produce benzene, the generation of products C and D from reactants A and B, and the methanol production from biogas [51], the synthesis of water integration, a heat exchanger network, and simultaneous water and heat integration [52], the integration and intensification for the production of ethylene glycol where heat integration outperforms reactive distillation-based processes [13], the synthesis of separation/reaction distillation intensified processes for the production of ethylene glycol [27], the synthesis of membrane reactors for the production of methanol from syngas and the partial oxidation of methane to generate syngas [53], and the synthesis and intensification of membrane-based processes for the separation of methane from nitrogen, vapor permeation for the separation of methanol/water, and gas permeation for the separation of syngas [54].…”