Comparisons of methods for assessing environmental safety of chemical processes during process design

Abstract

Despite major concern of industries on profitability, there has been growing awareness on the importance of considering environmentally conscious design of new processes. Consideration of environmental, health and safety aspects in the initial stages of chemical process design will not only lead to safer and environmentally benign plants, but overall cost reduction. The interest of this paper is on methods that consider environmental impacts as part of chemical process hazards. Eight methods are reviewed for their goal and scope, developer and considered aspects. The methods differ significantly in the considered aspects and parameters, which consequently influencing the way data is processed. The applicability of the methods with the environmental friendliness definition from chemical process stand point is also explained. The paper provides a reference for the comparison of the existing environmental assessment methods targeting various stages of chemical process design. The review finds that despite all the advantages of each of the methods, none is able to address all the environmental aspects of a process. Also none provides assessment approach for different plant stages. Therefore, further improvement of the assessment methods is needed.