Conceptual chemical process design in a sustainable technological world

Abstract

Delft University has an established track record in educating MSc students the art of designing chemical processes and products. To foster its future position an experimental conceptual design program has been set up. In this program sustainability requirements are used to stimulate creativity. Our vision is that (designs of) processes, products and systems should fit in a sustainable technological world (STW). The STW is in balance with the other great cycles on Earth, being the exchange of water between hydrosphere and atmosphere and the exchange of carbon dioxide between atmosphere and biosphere. The STW has, like the biosphere and hydrosphere, a certain upper mass (110 Gton) and energy (8800 GW). The STW itself is evolutionary and cannot be designed, yet its content—technological artifacts—is designed. Newly designed artifacts requiring an average life span of 25 years (one human generation), should fit the STW. The total annual product renewal of the STW is 4.4 Gton/year and the energy consumption 64 MJ/kg. These numbers total both industrial production as well as energy spent by consumers using the artifacts. Conceptual designs of chemical processes should fit in this concept of a STW. This means that processes requiring a high energy level are subject to change, for they limit society's patterns of energy consumption. Chemical processes demanding a lot of chemical energy are reduction processes: primary processes (roasting ores and biomass) and secondary processes (dissociations and dehydrogenations). In this article a conceptual design of both types of processes is presented. The first results show that their energy consumption fits the STW and points towards new design solutions for chemical processes, new applications of chemical products and new relationships with other technological sciences.