Design for environment: a state-of-the-art review

Abstract

Traditional process design concentrates on process simulation and profitability. However, for design for environment one has to extend the simulation framework to include chemical and process synthesis steps and multiple objectives for environmental and societal impacts. This article describes the developments in process design for environmental considerations. Incorporating environmental considerations in the early stages of design like chemical synthesis and process synthesis has larger impact on the design. Therefore, number of approaches and case studies in chemical and process synthesis for environment are presented here. Defining environmental impacts is more difficult than profitability. New models for defining environmental impacts is the focus of some papers important for design for environment. Uncertainties are large in these steps and need to be included in the computational procedures. Further, multiple objectives are involved in process design increasing the complexity of problem.