SUSTAINABILITY INTEGRATION IN CHEMICAL PROCESS ENGINEERING
Special Symposium - Environmental Protection & Sustainability
Keynote Lectures: EP&S
Keywords: Sustainability, life cycle, environmental management
A Irabien, R Aldaco, I Fernandez Olmo, A Garea Departamento Ingeniería Química y QI Universidad de Cantabria. Avda de los Castros s/n. 39005 Santander (Spain)
The world economy globalizes as national economies integrate into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, short term capital flows; international movement of workers and people in general and flows of technology.
As economies open up, more people become involved in the processes of knowledge integration and the deepening of non-market connections, including flows of information, culture, ideology and technology.
The global nature of the environment demands global environmental management and designing more sustainable processes and products is one of the key challenges, for a sustainable development of the chemical process industry. This is not a trivial task as it requires translating the principles of sustainable development into processes and products. Taking into account the long-term constraints imposed by the finite carrying capacity of the Earth is the main challenge
At present, there is not any established methodology to guide sustainable chemical process engineering and almost no practical experience. The management of complex systems involving material and energy flows will be essential and system-based tools for environmental management based on chemical engineering principles are common.
In an attempt to contribute to this emerging area, new methodologies for integrating sustainability considerations into chemical process engineering are necessary. Two main guidelines have to be considered:
(1) Life Cycle Thinking, this methodology guides the chemical engineer through different stages to enable integration of technical, economic, environmental and social criteria. The objectives seem to be how to assess the level of sustainability and how to use the obtained information to make the company, chemical processes and products more sustainable.
(2) The sustainability metrics. Many frameworks of sustainability assessment that focus on the performance of companies, processes and/or products have been suggested by now. They propose an evaluation based on numerous sustainability, indicators, which are generally measured in very different units.
The keynote deals with the sustainability analysis based on Life Cycle Assessment and the metrics and harmonization of the different sub-systems taking part in the chain supply. .
REFERENCES
Krajnc D, Glavic P (2005) “How to compare companies on relevant dimensions of sustainability” Ecological Economics 55 (4): 551-563
Clift R (2006) “Sustainable development and its implications for chemical engineering”
Chemical Engineering Science 61 (13): 4179-4187
Azapagic A, Millington A, Collett A (2006) “A methodology for integrating sustainability considerations into process design” Chemical Engineering Research & Design 84 (A6): 439-452
See the full pdf manuscript of the abstract.
Presented Tuesday 18, 11:00 to 11:45, in session Keynote Lectures: EP&S (S-7K1, K2).
