Sustainable aspects

ENERGETIC, EXERGETIC, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS OF THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS... 

A third approach to be considered is the ecological and sustainable aspects of a material. For instance, the fossil resources used for the fabrication of plastics constitute an undesirable contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere thus increasing global warming. Moreover, the long persistence of some plastic materials in the environment causes visual pollution and suffocation of animals, if their disposal in the post-use period is not adequate. The energy consumption in the fabrication of a material also falls under this consideration. 

More significantly, the design of the whole system should be subject to an optimization process with respect to sustainability aspects such as cost and wastes [86]. As shown in industrial applications, there are surface finishing systems for which the recovery of electrolytes is feasible and economically attractive [87]. 

Catalytical processes in the production of fine and intermediate chemicals have found great interest in industry which is well aware of commercial as well as environmentally sustainable aspects. Generally applicable methods for the transformation of major homogeneous catalysts to give recyclable heterogeneous catalysts will be presented in some examples. The immobilisation will be demonstrated in the following cases ... 

Three different examples of projects for sustainable development inside a food company were illustrated. They have two important elements in common first, they are strictly business oriented and firmly embedded with the overall commercial strategy. Second, they are mid-term to long-term projects, which require continued motivation, resources and energy from the entire organization. It is fair to say that in today s world sustainability aspects in... 

This chapter is arranged by the type of organic transformations with the emphasis on the most important catalytic systems used and the sustainable aspects developed thereof. 

Devoting attention to observable behaviour patterns. This implies observation of what occurs in one s surroundings, reflections on what is observed, and the design of approaches to foster the replacement of observed non-sustainable aspects with more sustainable ones. 

It is worth mentioning the link between our environment-related index and commonly used approaches such as life cycle assessment. According to our scope of research (see explanatory caveat in section 1.4) we limit our contribution to the design and operational space in the process life span. Thus, our focus is exclusively on the sustainability aspects that are under the control of the design and operational phases. In this regard, we aim at an operational efficiency, which means basically an effective utilization of resources in the process operation. Similar to life cycle assessment, we quantify the... 

The content of this rather classical control approach sets the stage for a next novel contribution to be introduced in chapter 8, involving the trade-off between design, responsiveness and sustainability aspects. Thus, the outcome of this section serves as a reference case to be compared with that of the life-span inspired design methodology (c/. section 1.4). 

Formulation, in which sustainability issues are considered and the basis of design i.e. product and feedstock purities ranges, production capacity, operating window and economics life-span accounting for sustainability aspects) are defined. 

---