Sustainable chemical engineering processes manufacturing

Loss prevention represents an interdisciplinary area of teaching and research activities. The integral term itself emphasizes this characteristic as it combines substance related process and equipment related plant safety. The comprehensive approach of loss prevention led to its development into an independent discipline. Taking courses to learn about the fundamentals should be mandatory to all students in chemical engineering. Today process safety is regarded to be equally important as ensuring quality, environmental sustainability and economic feasibility for all manufacturing processes in the chemical industry. 

John Blacker has been involved in the Fine Chemical/Pharmaceutical industry for 20 years and is currently Chair of Process Chemistry (www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/john-blacker) and Technical Director of the Institute of Process Research and Development (www.iprd.leeds.ac.uk) at the University of Leeds, part of both the School of Chemistry and the School of Chemical and Process Engineering. His interests are in sustainable chemical manufacture using catalysis, flow and efficient batch processes. He undertakes much work with indevelopment of better production processes and... 

Sustainably generated hydrogen has many uses in chemical synthesis and in synthetic fuels manufacture. In addition to its applications in fuel cells, it can be burned directly in gas turbines and internal combustion engines. It is the fuel of choice for fuel cells and, combined chanically with N2 from air, it is used to make ammonia for fertilizer and synthetic nitrogen compounds. It is a key feedstock for processes to convert biomass materials, such as sugars, to useful synthetic chemicals. And elemental H2 is a key ingredient in making synthetic fnels from coal, biomass, and even CO2. 

Key green engineering research areas for sustainable manufacturing a perspective from pharmaceutical and fine chemicals manufacturers. Org. Process Res. Dev., 15, 900-911. 

J-G. Concepcion, Q.B. Broxterman, B-S Yang, D. Ende, J. Baird, C. Bertsch, R.E. Hannah Phil DeU Orco, H. Noorman, S. Yee, R. Reintjens, A. Wells, V. Massonneau, J. Manley, Key green engineering research areas for sustainable manufacturing a perspective from pharmaceutical and fine chemicals manufacturers, Oig. Process Res. Dev. (15) (2011) 900-911. 

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