Sustainable green chemical technology rises up the corporate agenda

Green is go

27 July 2009 15:47  [Source: ICB]

New process concepts are being developed for sustainable chemical production in a future that will be increasingly reliant on green design

Sustainability is rising up the corporate agenda, as the need to improve energy efficiency and meet climate change targets dominates industries around the globe.

The chemical industry is striving to play its part too, and many companies are pushing sustainability within their organizations in a bid to differentiate themselves from their competitors and win over customers who are becoming more environmentally aware.

But, there is still a feeling in the industry that sustainable chemical technology needs to be better recognized as a business tool for driving competitiveness and profitability.

Malcolm Wilkinson, chairman of the sustainability group at international organization Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), says: "Industry is seeing this drive but it is patchy. Clearly some have seen, what ought to be obvious, that there is a very powerful business case and an opportunity, although challenging, to get ahead of the queue and to gain competitive advantage."

Wilkinson says that IChemE started looking at sustainable development ten years ago, and he has seen a huge shift in appreciation of the issue during this time. "We are starting to see some action," he says.

The IChemE has devised a roadmap for 21st Century chemical engineering, with sustainability and sustainable chemical technology being one of its six key themes.

Its agenda is to rapidly pursue the global use of non-fossil primary energy sources, drive the three R's of reduce, reuse and recycle deeper into industry and consumers' psyche, and accelerate the introduction of innovative and sustainable technology.

Green processes will focus on carbohydrate-based raw materials, low energy consumption, and recycling or reusing intermediates and end-products.

Chemical engineers, manufacturers and academia are all collaborating to develop green products and processes in a future that will be more reliant on clean energy and renewable feedstocks

But, says Wilkinson, the industry is short of an operational design framework. There are 12 principles of green engineering, proposed by green chemistry pioneers Paul Anastas, John Warner and Julie Beth Zimmerman, that have become widely-recognized criteria for assessing technology as green and Wilkinson believes they are a good starting point.

However, a number of these principles get applied piecemeal and not many companies have tried to apply them in a holistic sense, he says.

Process concepts under development include plant miniaturization, process intensification, multifunctional catalysts to increase selectivity, novel separation and reactor technology, as well as new measurement techniques and predictive modeling.

Wilkinson says much work is going into improving catalysts to reduce process complexity, such as biocatalysts and biorefining, and in using crop and food waste to feed chemical production.

Companies are looking too at intensifying process equipment and reducing plant footprints. Specialty and fine chemical producers, as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking at moving from batch to continuous processing in small and more multi-purpose plants, although this is ­difficult with commercial realization some way off, says Wilkinson.

Another area of focus includes new polymers that can ease fabrication of components, making it easier for plastic parts to be recycled. For example, the car industry has to reduce the use of certain types of plastics in cars to make disassembly and recycling easier.

In the UK, Chemistry Innovation, a publicly funded Knowledge Transfer Network (CIKTN), set up in 2006, is currently engaged in 67 live collaborative projects. A total of £57m ($93m, €66.5m) has been invested in projects in the three years to March 2009. Global chemical companies involved include Clariant UK, Lubrizol, Croda, Huntsman, BP, Unilever, Bayer CropScience and Asahi Glass.

Johnson Matthey's launch in June of a new groundbreaking methanol synthesis catalyst was a CIKTN project. The UK specialty chemical company collaborated with Cardiff University to develop novel catalysts for methanol synthesis prepared by a nitrate-free route.

The catalyst, Katalco Apico, will, says Johnson Matthey, increase efficiency by adding methanol production to existing plants and reduce the capital and operating costs of new plants.

Chemical producers too are fighting to keep ahead of the sustainability game. One such example is Germany's LANXESS which in July announced the start of a collaborative effort to develop an energy-efficient and green technology to produce synthetic rubber.

The process, which is based on separation technology, will use 50% less electricity and gas as well as making big savings in steam consumption, says LANXESS' head of financial and business media relations, Daniel Smith.

LANXESS is working with Germany's Bayer Technology Services, the Technical University of Dortmund, University of Bonn, and specialist technology equipment maker Buss-SMS-Canzler.

The project, which will take three years, will cost €10m, half of which will be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

LANXESS says researchers have developed a concept for a technological breakthrough based on laboratory scale testing. The next step will be to develop further the process and run trials at a mini plant in Dormagen, Germany.

The technology can be used to produce various forms of synthetic rubber, such as butyl rubber and polybutadiene rubber. LANXESS says it plans to use elements of the process at its proposed 100,000 tonne/year butyl rubber facility on Jurong Island in Singapore which is due on stream in 2014.

Producers are, not surprisingly, keen to publicize their sustainability ventures, but by contrast, chemical engineering companies are particularly reticent in speaking about their development efforts.

DON'T BE SO SHY, ENGINEERS!
Many engineers including Shaw Group, and Jacobs in the US, and Lummus Technology, part of Netherlands-headquartered Chicago Bridge & Iron, state that they are unable to comment publicly on their sustainable chemical process technology work.

The silent response from process departments at companies including US-based Kellogg Brown & Root,France's Technip and Lurgi in Germany, was also noted, especially since these companies aim to present themselves as key players in offering technological solutions to meet sustainability targets.

The UK's Engineering Council has just issued its guidance on sustainability for the engineering profession. It mentions that engineers should engage with stakeholders and promote the important leadership role of the engineer in finding solutions to sustainability challenges.

Education and general awareness of their work, both inside and outside the chemical industry, is vital for a sustainable future.

GREEN CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

	Principles of green engineering		Principles of green chemistry
I	Inherently non-hazardous and safe	P	Prevents wastes
M	Minimize material diversity	R	Renewable materials
P	Prevention instead of treatment	O	Omit derivatization steps
R	Renewable material and energy inputs	D	Degradable chemical products
O	Output-led design	U	Use safe synthetic methods
V	Very simple	C	Catalytic reagents
E	Efficient use of mass, energy, space & time	T	Temperature & pressure ambient
M	Meet the need	I	In-process monitoring
E	Easy to separate by design	V	Very few auxiliary substances
N	Networks for exchange of local mass & energy	E	E-factor, maximize feed in product
T	Test the life-cycle of the design	L	Low toxicity of chemical products
S	Sustainability throughout the produce life-cycle	Y	Yes it's safe
Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

 

Read Doris de Guzman's Green Chemicals blog

By: Elaine Burridge
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