(642b) Data Availability and Management for Process Sustainability Evaluation: Greenscope

Chemical products are obtained through processes that transform valuable resources into desired products, byproducts, and undesirable wastes and emissions. A particular product can be obtained from alternative processes involving varying amounts and types of resources, utilization and byproduct formation. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and identify the most sustainable process among many design alternatives.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has created the GREENSCOPE tool (Ruiz-Mercado et al, 2013) (EXCEL® version) to guide decision-makers, designers, and stakeholders in developing more sustainable processes. GREENSCOPE calculates about 140 sustainability indicators and estimates chemical process sustainability in the areas of environment, efficiency, energy, and economics. This tool can be used for chemical process sustainability evaluation either in the early design or at the operational stage and aid in proper decision making to yield the most sustainable process possible.

GREENSCOPE process indicators are calculated using process data and chemical property data. The scope for successful implementation of chemical process sustainability relies on the availability and management of representative data from various sources. This includes chemical process data, classification lists, potency factors, and physicochemical, thermodynamic, and toxicological data. The complexity of data handling and management required for chemical process sustainability evaluation with GREENSCOPE has lead to the advent of a standalone software version. The standalone software tool is capable of handling challenges with data availability from various sources and heterogeneity of different chemical processes. This work describes development of the JAVA based GREENSCOPE tool for chemical process sustainability evaluation. This tool is designed to be integrated and available to other design tools such as simulator packages, optimization tools, sensitivity tools, etc.

 In the GREENSCOPE JAVA version tool, a relational database for data management has been implemented to handle data from different sources. Both local and online databases are connected with GREENSCOPE. Currently, database creation, upload, modification, and access were performed using JAVA database connectivity functions. Different relational databases were created for proper handling of data using MySQL.

This presentation will describe the indicators used for sustainability evaluation of chemical processes. A detail description of different methods for obtaining required data and their handling methods for sustainability estimation with different indicators will be shown. It will also show how choices between different process design alternatives can be made using GREENSCOPE.

 Ruiz-Mercado, Gerardo J., Michael A. Gonzalez, and Raymond L. Smith. “Sustainability Indicators for Chemical Processes: III. Biodiesel Case Study.” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research. DOI: 10.1021/ie302804x