Synthesis and design of sustainable integrated process, water treatment, and power generation networks

Abstract

A concept of sustainable synthesis, design, and innovation of integrated chemical processes with the overall objective to achieve zero or negative waste emissions is proposed. Available potential energy sources for power and heat generation processes are integrated into a consolidated energy supply sub-network. Available possible water sources and treatment technologies including wastewater recycling are integrated into a water sub-network. For identified target products, existing and potential processing routes are integrated into a superstructure representing a process sub-network. The above three sub-networks when combined lead to the formation of a consolidated optimization framework, which represents the multiple sub-networks at different scales and includes environmental impacts as constraints, for an integrated sustainable synthesis-design problem definition. A decomposition-based strategy is employed to solve the optimization problem to obtain the design of a totally integrated and sustainable process with positive economic benefits and low energy consumption, together with low carbon and pollutant emissions. The applicability of the framework and solution steps are illustrated through a conceptual but realistic case study under different scenarios.