Sustainability and the effect chemical processes have on the environment has become a topic of considerable interest in recent years. Because of this, it is increasingly important to include these topics in the process design education of chemical engineering students. This contribution will highlight how these topics have been integrated into traditional capstone design projects.

Maintaining a capstone design program that includes sustainability requires careful selection of the design problem. Although sustainable design principles can be incorporated into any process, the challenge is to ensure that the process chosen clearly illustrates these principles to design students. This contribution will highlight two such projects that meet his challenge.

These two projects are both based on the manufacture of biodiesel. This is important because in terms of energy production, biodiesel has been shown to have an overall positive lifecycle energy balance. Therefore the use of biodiesel and its byproducts may have a positive impact on global climate change. Recently published estimates predict that the demand for biodiesel will grow from 6 to 9 million metric tons per year in the United States and from 5 to 14 million metric tons per year in the European Union in the next few years. However, the two capstone design projects presented will not focus on the production of biodiesel itself, but rather on other key aspects of the product lifecycle –side product utilization and raw material production.

The first example capstone design project will be based on developing processes for the manufacture of industrial chemical products from the glycerol generated as a byproduct of the manufacture of biodiesel. For every 9 kilograms of biodiesel produced, 1 kilogram of crude glycerol is formed as a byproduct. Therefore, the identification of novel industrial uses for this glycerol is important to the economic viability of biodiesel. In addition, the process for manufacturing industrial chemical products from glycerol will be compared to more traditional manufacturing processes.

The second example design project is based on producing one of the catalysts for the manufacture of biodiesel from fatty acid methyl esters. This process plays an important role in the overall lifecycle of the biodiesel process. Understanding how each step in the manufacturing supply chain affects the overall sustainability of the biodiesel is important to an overall understanding of sustainable design choices.

In each of these examples, tools such as of the Waste Reduction (WAR) Algorithm, developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, life cycle analysis and inherently safe design principles will be integrated into the conceptual design process.