Chemical processing plants, life cycles

Y. Naka, H. Seki, S. Hoshino, and K. Kawamura, 2007, Information Model And Technological Information - Infrastructure For Plant Life Cycle Engineering, ICheaP-8 The eight International Conference on Chemical Process Engineering. 

LIFE-CYCLE EVALUATION OF CHEMICAL PROCESSING PLANTS... 

Life-cycle Evaluation of Chemical Processing Plants... 

The concept of life cycle is widely and usefully applied to both chemical processing plants and to chemical products. We first consider chemical processing plants, where the life cycle proceeds through six phases ... 

Figure 1 shows some key stages of the life cycle of a chemical processing plant. 1... 

A chemical processing plant can be seen as a module of the extended life cycle for a product. For example, both alumina refining and aluminium smelting are separate and significant processes in the life cycle of the product aluminium. As such, LCA is a promising tool for quantitative evaluation of the cleanliness... 

The manufacture of a chemical product within a chemical processing plant is one stage of a product life cycle that includes the entire manufacturing and product assembly chain, as well as the use and disposal phases of the product. It is important to minimize the waste in the entire product life cycle, implying waste... 

The quantitative assessment of environmental impacts can be made using life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, which accounts for both inputs and emissions. LCA can be used to identify the major environmental impact categories and the sources of those impacts within a chemical processing plant. LCA can also be used to identify the major contributions to environmental impact within a product s life cycle. Impact scores derived from LCA can be used along with economic assessment scores and social indicators to provide indicators of overall sustainability of processes and products. Economic assessments are often limited through failure to account for all internal costs and especially the external costs associated with waste. 

Product innovation absorbs considerable resources in the fine chemicals industry, in part because of the shorter life cycles of fine chemicals as compared to commodities. Consequently, research and development (R D) plays an important role. The main task of R D in fine chemicals is scaling-up lab processes, as described, eg, in the ORAC data bank or as provided by the customers, so that the processes can be transferred to pilot plants (see Pilot PLANTS AND microplants) and subsequently to industrial-scale production. Thus the R D department of a fine chemicals manufacturer typically is divided into a laboratory or process research section and a development section, the latter absorbing the Hon s share of the R D budget, which typically accounts for 5 to 10% of sales. Support functions include the analytical services, engineering, maintenance, and Hbrary. 

Reactive chemical process safety Systematic identification, evaluation, and control of reactive hazards at all phases of the production life cycle-from R D to pilot plant, change management, and decommissioning and for all types of operations-from storage or manufacturing to packaging or waste processing. 

Another aspect of the time dimension of inherent safety concerns where in the life-cycle of the plant the decision to consider inherent safety arises [22]. It is generally acknowledged that the benefits of inherently safer technologies may persist throughout the life-cycle of a chemical process or plant. This is actually one of the reasons why anticipation of the need for inherent safety is so important being early can generate more benefits. 

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