GreenPro-I: a risk-based life cycle assessment and decision-making methodology for process plant design
Introduction
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic approach to estimate environmental impacts associated with products, processes and services. It is described as a process to evaluate environmental burdens by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released into the environment, and to identify and evaluate opportunities to affect environmental improvements. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity encompassing extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation and distribution, use, recycle, and final disposal (Fava et al., 1991, USEPA, 1995, Tukker, 2000. The LCA is a decision-making tool for designer, regulatory agencies, and business organizations. It is used to evaluate the environmental impacts of products and process and also identifies a section within a product or process’s life cycle where the greatest reduction in resource requirements and emissions can be achieved.
Generally the LCA employs a product-centered approach, but recent efforts suggest a great potential of the LCA in process design. For a designer it has been serious question how to accommodate various constraints such as economic, technology and environment to the design and operation of cleaner and greener process. Earlier design approaches were economics centered and based on cost–benefit analysis. These approaches attempt to trade-off environmental and economic assets with an aim to maximize differences between socioeconomic benefits of an activity against the financial and environmental liabilities. Such practices ultimately seek to attach a monetary value to the environment and are therefore fraught with difficulty (Jacobs, 1991).
The LCA may prove to overcome many of the problems faced in the conventional approaches and therefore establish a link between the environmental impacts, operation, and economics of a process. It offers an expanded environmental perspective, considering impacts from resource extraction to the end product use and disposal. The LCA relates these effects to the mass and energy flows into, out of, and within a process (Kniel et al., 1996, Choong and Sharratt, 2000). According to the ISO 14040 series standards, the LCA should assess the potential environmental issues and aspects associated with a product or service by compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs; evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs; and interpreting the results of the inventory and impact phases in relation to the objectives of the study. Considering these, we believe that the LCA has an ability to focus both process operational feasibility and environmental concern along with other attributes.
The present work focuses on the development of process selection and design methodology considering assessment and minimization of risks/impacts of process systems by embedding the LCA principles within a formal process design and decision-making framework. It has implications to process synthesis as it includes environmental objectives together with technology and economics at the design stage to determine cost efficient solutions. Authors believe that employing the LCA with a process design and decision-making would yield an optimal design and a best management alternative. This paper presents a detailed description of a revised methodology for cleaner and greener process design. The applicability of methodology has been demonstrated through a case study.
Section snippets
Past work on cleaner process selection and design
In the past, attempts have been made by chemical industries to reduce pollution by implementing cleaner technologies or processes. Many times it has been observed that the efforts made to optimize the waste treatment process reduces the quality and/or quantity of waste discharge at the end-of-the-pipe, but increases the total environmental burden and impacts. Therefore, it is very important to consider the environmental burden and adverse impact caused due to any change or modification in the
GreenPro-I: the proposed methodology for a cleaner and greener process design
The GreenPro-I methodology comprises two main steps
- 1.
risk-based life cycle assessment (RBLCA); and
- 2.
risk-based MCDM.
GreenPro-I application to a urea plant
In India, urea is the most common fertilizer being the cheapest source of nitrogen and the most suitable for Indian soil. Presently India has 41 plants producing urea with a total capacity of 20.1 metric ton. Out of them 19 are based on natural gas (alternative 1), 14 on naptha (alternative 2), six on fuel oil (alternative 3) and two on coal, as feedstock (alternative 4). Percentage contributions of each feedstock to the total installed capacity are: natural gas 54.2%, naptha 26.1%, fuel oil
Summary and conclusions
The RBLCA methodology GreenPro-I, is a systematic step-by-step approach to estimate environmental risks and impacts associated with products, processes and services. It is a process to evaluate environmental burdens by quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released into the environment, and to identify/evaluate opportunities to effect environmental improvements. The assessment may include the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity encompassing extraction and processing
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Present address: Institute for Research in Construction (IRC), National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6.