The electrochemical reduction of CO 2 has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional fossil-based technologies for the synthesis of chemicals. Its industrial implementation could lead to a reduction in the carbon footprint of chemicals and the mitigation of climate change impacts caused by hard-to-decarbonize industrial applications, among other benefits. However, the current low technology readiness levels of such emerging technologies make it hard to predict their performance at industrial scales. During the past few years, researchers have developed diverse techniques to model and assess the electrochemical reduction of CO 2 toward its industrial implementation. The aim of this literature review is to provide a comprehensive overview of techno-economic and life cycle assessment methods and pave the way for future assessment approaches. First, we identify which modeling approaches have been conducted to extend analysis to the production scale. Next, we explore the metrics used to evaluate such systems, regarding technical, environmental, and economic aspects. Finally, we assess the challenges and research opportunities for the industrial implementation of CO 2 reduction via electrolysis.

The concept of the circular economy has gained wide interest in industry as a powerful strategy to reduce impacts while remaining economically competitive. Here we explore the benefits of this approach in the chemical industry, quantifying explicitly the economic and environmental benefits of ethylene recovery from polyethylene plastics using process modeling coupled with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Our results show that the recovered ethylene represents a win-win alternative, offering a highly competitive cost of 0.386 €/kg vs 0.835 €/ kg with the standard naphtha-based route. Furthermore, substantial reductions of as much as 87%, 89% and 164% could also be attained (compared to the naphtha-based ethylene) in impacts on human health, ecosystem quality and resources scarcity, respectively.Overall, this work aims to promote the adoption of circular economy strategies in the chemical sector, while highlighting the role of process modeling, LCA and systems thinking in quantifying the associated benefits to build strong cases for policymaking.

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The global economy is shifting toward more sustainable sources of energy. The transportation sector is a remarkable example of this fact, where biofuels have emerged as promising alternatives to traditional fossil fuels. This work presents a techno-economic and environmental assessment of existing liquid fuels in hard-to-decarbonize sectors and their emerging renewable substitutes. The comparison focuses on fossil-based, biomass-derived, and plastic waste-sourced fuel alternatives that can be used in spark-ignition (gasoline) and compression-ignition (diesel) engines. Results for diesel substitutes prove the superior performance of plastic waste pyrolysis oil in terms of production cost reduction (−25% compared to diesel) and “well-to-tank” life cycle impact reduction (−54% human health, −40% ecosystems, −98% resources). Consequently, research and development toward the conversion of plastic waste into fuels should be extended to make the technology more accessible and robust in terms of fuel quality. On the contrary, the results for gasoline alternatives are not as conclusive: bioethanol and ethanol from plastic pyrolysis have a considerably lower impact on resource scarcity than gasoline (−80% and −35% respectively) and higher on the other two life cycle endpoint categories, but they have higher production costs compared to gasoline (+57% and +130% respectively). While blends of gasoline with pyrolysis-sourced ethanol can reduce the impact on human health and ecosystems, blends with bioethanol have a lower impact on resource scarcity and increase economic profitability. This allows fuel providers to offer tradeoff solutions in the form of blends based on their priorities.

Increasing water demand by the process and allied industries coupled with global water stress and scarcity have underlined the importance of water as a crucial resource and increased the need for widespread adoption of water reuse and recycle. Early research based on water-pinch analysis addressed the use of systematic methods to identify the most promising opportunities for water reuse within a process plant. More recent work has addressed similar concepts in the framework of industrial symbiosis and Eco-Industrial Parks (EIP) under the assumption of the leadership of an EIP authority. However, many wastewater plants continue processing wastewater to condition water for disposal, which means meeting the limits given by given regulations at a minimum cost. These wastewater plants may play a role in a growing market of regenerated water in which an increasing number of businesses and public services demanding water with different quality specifications. Hence, this work is presenting an MINLP model aimed at exploiting the flexibility of a wastewater treatment plant and maximizing its profit within this market. Results and discussion are provided in regard of a case study based on a wastewater treatment plant nearby Barcelona.