Development of an Industrial Environmental Index to Assess the Sustainability of Industrial Solvent-Based Processes

Abstract

In light of the constant increase in global temperatures, increasing risks associated with climate change, and stricter environmental policies, societies are at a crossroad where sound environmental decisions need to be taken. This is particularly applicable to the chemical industry where the sustainability of processes is all the more relevant to decision-making. This article supports the development of a holistic industrial environmental index (IEI) to assess the sustainability of industrial solvent-based processes. Several metrics are reviewed to individually assess particular aspects of the process in terms of materials, equipment, energy, environmental health and safety (EHS) considerations, and the product’s entire life cycle. The metrics are later used to support the development of an aggregate and holistic IEI using a composite indicator method. The developed methodology and framework can pave the way for environmentally sound decision-making in industries and spark the development of dedicated assessment indices similar to IEI that can be applied to a wide array of other industries.

A proposed sustainability index for synthesis plans based on input provenance and output fate: application to academic and industrial synthesis plans for vanillin as a case study

“…This definition is similar to renewability index proposed earlier [15]. (10) In the present formalism we define the following energy sources as renewable: hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuels; and the following energy sources as non-renewable: coal, other fossil-fuels such as petroleum and natural gas, and nuclear. Furthermore, following recently published energy mix data [16,17] we set F RE = 0.35 for all synthesis plans that were published on or after the year 2000 and F RE = 0 for all synthesis plans that were published before 2000.…”

“…Also noted was the "key need [to come up with] a standardized approach for assessing the sustainability of chemical processes or products", and the need for "better information on product content throughout the supply chain and more complete data on the health and environmental impacts of chemicals throughout their life-cycle" in order for "stakeholders [to] make informed decisions that compare the sustainability of various products". A literature search on the subject of sustainability metrics in chemistry journals revealed a few publications that addressed the problem of quantifying and measuring what sustainability is [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Most of the discussions revolved around extended thermodynamics analysis, energy consumption, and energy resource considerations from fossil-fuel derived and renewable sources.…”

“…Sheldon and Sanders defined sustainability metrics for the production of chemicals from renewable biomass in terms of four criteria: material and energy efficiency, land use, and process economics [9]. Very recently, Egyptian and Lebanese scientists put forward an industrial environmental index obtained from process, environmental health and safety, and life cycle assessment metrics to assess the sustainability of industrial solvent-based processes [10].…”

The green solvent: a critical perspective

“…A wealth of additional studies, too many to survey comprehensively, have focussed more narrowly on the replacement of: (i) a single solvent, such as N -methylpyrrolidone (Sherwood et al 2016 ) or N,N- dimethylformamide (Linke et al 2020 ); (ii) a solvent type, such as dipolar aprotics (Duereh et al 2017 ) or chlorinated organics (Jordan et al 2021 ); (iii) a reaction medium for a particular reaction (Avalos et al 2006 ), such as amide coupling (MacMillan et al 2013 ), aldehyde reductive amination (McGonagle et al 2013 ) or the Delépine reaction (Jordan et al 2020 ); (iv) a solvent in a process (Avalos et al 2006 ; Fadel and Tarabieh 2019 ), such as membrane production (Xie et al 2020 ); (v) one or more solvents in a series of products (Isoni et al 2016 ); (vi) one or more solvents in an application, such as cleaning, (Tickner et al 2021 ), lubrication (Dörr et al 2019 ), chromatography (Taygerly et al 2012 ; MacMillan et al 2012 ), or product recovery (López-Porfiri et al 2020 ); (vii) one or more solvents in a technology, such as carbon capture (Borhani and Wang 2019 ), or water-based metal extraction (Binnemans and Jones 2017 ; Peeters et al 2020 ); or (viii) the optimised selection of solvents and anti-solvents in pharmaceutical recrystallization from a defined set of 68 compounds (Tan et al 2019 ).…”

An integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model for Sustainability Performance Assessment for Insurance Companies

“…Sustainability is development which satisfies the current needs without restraining subsequent generations from satisfying their own needs [2]. Various methods have been used to evaluate sustainability in different disciplines [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Several methods to assess the sustainability performance of firms and companies have been developed [11][12][13][14].…”