Assessment of the Integral Resource Consumption of Individual Chemical Production Processes in a Multipurpose Pharmaceutical Production Plant: A Complex Task

Abstract

Up to now, process specific integral resource consumption is barely used as criterion for the selection and improvement of fine chemical and pharmaceutical production processes. Reasons are the complexity of the supply networks in multipurpose plants and the requirement of a detailed data inventory from the production plant itself and from facilities delivering supporting utilities and treating waste streams. In this paper, a methodology is presented to set up integral mass and energy balances of specific production processes in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industry. This methodology is based on the principle that each chemical production process is a sequence of unit operations in which basic operations at individual equipment take place. These basic operations are considered as the building blocks for all production processes. If the resource consumption of each building block can be quantified, not only at the operation itself but also at the on-site and off-site upstream and downstream processes to sustain the operation, the integral resource requirement of a whole specific production process can be quantified by the summation of the resource requirements of all building blocks involved. This methodology allows the development of a calculation tool for the quantification of the integral resource consumption with minimized data inventory. This tool will enable the selection of the most resource efficient production process and will indicate points of improvement. In this way production processes in pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries can become economically and ecologically more sustainable.