Sustainable Design and Operation of a Reactive Distillation System Used for the Production of Cosmetic Ingredients

Edwin Zondervan*, Aaron D. Bojarski, Antonio Espuña, Luis Puigjaner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this work a framework for the combined assessment of economic and environmental impact was developed for an industrial application. The method was tested for a reactive distillation (RD) process that is used for the production of fatty acid esters. The method integrates three stages, first the optimization goals are set and the system is modeled accordingly, secondly a sensitivity analysis is performed, the collected data is lastly interpreted using Pareto analysis and rank and proximity criteria. For the RD case study the sensitivity analysis showed that the catalyst requirement influences the economic impact and that the impact of wastewater treatment is the key component for the environmental impact. From the Pareto analysis recommendations concerning the design of the column can be made (in terms of operational pressure and number of stages), where the economic and environmental impacts are balanced.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComputer Aided Chemical Engineering
PublisherElsevier
Chapter4
Pages85-107
Number of pages23
Volume36
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameComputer Aided Chemical Engineering
Volume36
ISSN (Print)1570-7946

Keywords

  • Life cycle assessment
  • Multicriterion decision-making
  • Process design
  • Process intensification
  • Reactive distillation
  • Sustainability metrics

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