Designing Sustainable Processes

Session Chairs:

• Juben Chheda, Shell
• Susanne Wolff, DuPont

Session Description:

Sustainability has become a key metric for today’s businesses to survive and thrive. Developing more sustainable products and industrial solutions requires a transition allowing society to reduce emissions, tackle climate change, while also providing economic/social benefits to everyone. It is a key consideration today for both new and existing products and their processes. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a powerful tool to enable a deeper understanding of the technology, process, supply chain, and geographical aspects contributing to an individual product’s environmental impact. In combination with traditional techno-economic type evaluation techniques, LCA accelerates our ability to enhance a product’s financial profile while reducing the impact on the planet.  This session will include multiple viewpoints from start-ups focused on designing chemicals/fuels from renewable materials to large players incorporating sustainability throughout traditional process development to improve carbon footprint and overall process economics.

*All session and speaker information is subject to change pending finalization

Schedule:

Abstracts:

Developing Sustainable Technologies & Processes, An Industrial Perspective

Stephen Tieri, DuPont

Business and industry are increasingly challenged to develop technologies, processes, & products which are sustainable in every sense of the word; environmentally sustainable, socially beneficial, economically attractive, and that provide a sustained revenue and profit source.  Traditional techno-economic analyses characterize the economic aspects of and differences between alternative process technologies, configurations, and options; enabling informed process development decisions.  Similarly, a variety of tools & techniques exist to identify and differentiate the environmental impacts and sustainability profiles of processes, supply chains, and location options.  These complementary tools enable an expanded insight into the risk profiles and impacts of technology, supply chain, and siting choices; accelerating our capability to deliver increasingly sustainable solutions.  This presentation will discuss complementary use of sustainability evaluation methods (LCA, water footprint, etc.) with traditional techno-economic analysis to enable process development and deliver more sustainable technologies and products to the marketplace.  

Criteria for Evaluating Biomass to Chemicals

John Birmingham, Origin Materials

Conversion of lignocellulose biomass to value-added chemicals has gained significant attention over the last decade for potential replacement of fossil fuel-derived species. In comparison to petrochemical sources, lignocellulose can provide a low-cost, low-volatility, sustainable source of carbon needed to meet the ever-growing demand for materials production. Additionally, use of biomass allows for preservation of functional groups present in oxygen-rich cellulosic feedstocks, granting access to a broader range of platform chemicals (ie. organic acids, furans, etc.) than readily achievable through conventional petrochemical pathways. However, significant technical and market challenges exist for biomass-to-chemicals processes – not least the direct competition with incumbent, highly-optimized synthesis routes from fossil fuels. As such, developing accurate mental models for evaluating such potential processes proves valuable. This session will provide examples of screening criteria including cellulose content, bulk solids density, harvesting frequency, etc. that can be applied when considering biomass-to-chemicals processes.

Sustainability in the Context of Process Engineering

Debalina Sengupta, Texas A&M Energy Institute and TEES Gas and Fuels Research Center

Computational process design for sustainability using various available techniques is still limited to computer-aided design featuring process optimization of energy and material flow plus minimizing greenhouse gas emission and water conservation.  Sustainable process demands more, such as minimizing the impacts from other harmful emissions, discharges, waste creation, economic, and societal impacts.  With the recent wave of renewed interest in manufacturing efforts in the United States, sustainability of the process industry becomes all the more important.  This presentation will focus on recent advances in process systems related sustainability assessment methods and the education of the next generation of engineers in this context.  Advances in process design, analysis, sustainability measurement, indicators, interpretation etc. will be covered.