Computer aided assessment of occupationally healthier processes during research and development stage

Abstract

Each year more people die from occupational related diseases than are killed in industrial accidents. Therefore it is critical to start considering health aspect early when developing a new chemical process. In this paper, computer aided tool for assessing inherent occupational health is proposed for chemical process research and development stage. The method was developed based on the reaction chemistry data, which is the only data available at this stage. Three types of approaches were formulated to calculate the route index value using additive type, average type and worst case type calculations. The tool can be used to rank the alternative chemical synthesis routes by their health properties as well as characterize the hazard level of single process. Finally the tool was applied to six process routes for methyl methacrylate production for demonstration.