Meramo-Hurtado Samir I, González-Delgado Ángel D, Rehmann Lars, Quiñones-Bolaños Edgar, Mehrvar Mehrab
Bussines Management and Productivity Research Group, Industrial Engineering Program, Fundación Universitaria Colombo International, Av. Pedro Heredia Sector Cuatro Vientos #31-50, Cartagena 130000, Colombia.
Nanomaterials and Computer-Aided Process Engineering, Chemical Engineering Program, Universidad de Cartagena, Piedra de Bolívar. Street 30 # 48-152, Cartagena 130000, Colombia.
ACS Omega. 2020 Jul 21;5(30):18710-18730. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c01656. eCollection 2020 Aug 4.
The incorporation of sustainability aspects into the design of chemical processes has been increasing since the last century. Hence, there are several proposed methodologies and indicators to assess chemical facilities through process analysis techniques. A comprehensive assessment involving economic, environmental, safety, and exergy parameters of two alternatives for butanol production from (cassava waste) is presented in this study. The modeling of process topologies involved using Aspen Plus software. Topology 1 generated a product flow rate of 316,477 t/y of butanol, while this value was 367,037 t/y for topology 2. Both processes used a feed flow of 3,131,439 t/y of biomass. This study used seven technical indicators to evaluate both alternatives, which include the return of investment, discounted payback period, global warming potential, renewability material index, inherent safety index, exergy efficiency, and exergy of waste ratio. Otherwise, this study implemented an aggregate index to assess overall sustainability performance. The results revealed that topology 2 presented higher economic normalized scores for evaluated indicators, but the most crucial difference between these designs came from the safety and exergetic indexes. Topology 1 and topology 2 obtained weighted scores equaling to 0.48 and 0.53; therefore, this study found that the second alternative gives a more sustainable design for butanol production under evaluated conditions.
自上个世纪以来，将可持续发展因素纳入化学过程设计的情况一直在增加。因此，有几种提议的方法和指标可通过过程分析技术来评估化学设施。本研究对以木薯废料生产丁醇的两种方案的经济、环境、安全和火用参数进行了全面评估。过程拓扑结构的建模使用了Aspen Plus软件。拓扑结构1产生的丁醇产品流量为316,477吨/年，而拓扑结构2的该值为367,037吨/年。两个过程都使用了3,131,439吨/年的生物质进料流量。本研究使用七个技术指标来评估这两种方案，包括投资回报率、折现回收期、全球变暖潜势、可再生材料指数、固有安全指数、火用效率和废火用比。此外，本研究采用了一个综合指数来评估整体可持续性表现。结果显示，拓扑结构2在评估指标方面呈现出更高的经济归一化得分，但这些设计之间最关键的差异来自安全和火用指数。拓扑结构1和拓扑结构2获得的加权分数分别为0.48和0.53；因此，本研究发现第二种方案在评估条件下为丁醇生产提供了更具可持续性的设计。
