LT: Environmental and Human Health Assessment Software for the Chemicals Manufacturing Industry

9814504肖纳德：近年来，化学加工工业采用了各种防止污染的方法，强调通过无害环境的化学、材料替代和废物成分的回收/再循环来减少过程中产生的废物。这些努力大多只侧重于具体的减少污染目标，强调在实现这些目标的同时尽量减少设备和操作成本。不幸的是，关注单个环境端点忽略了一个现实，即存在多种环境和人类健康影响，这些影响受到工艺设计优化的影响。为了解决这些限制，本研究的目的是利用PI开发的方法和软件工具，将多种环境和人类健康考虑因素纳入化学工艺设计。目标将是说明如何化学过程设计可以改变响应不同的优化目标。目标将包括传统的过程绩效经济指标，个别环境影响指数和累积加权多重环境指数。具体的研究目标是：(1)结合现有的化学过程环境评估方法和软件工具，对从气态废物流中回收VOC进行夹夹分析；(2)通过应用于上述案例研究中的替代制冷剂，演示使用生命周期评估替代化学品；(3)模拟性质不确定性对夹夹分析研究的影响，因为它们影响污染物的环境命运和运输特性；(4)为密歇根理工大学暑期青年项目创建一个基于计算机的动手演示。这项资助是根据美国国家科学基金会/朗讯科技公司1998年工业生态研究奖学金计划提供的

9814504 Shonnard The chemical process industries have employed various pollution prevention methodologies in recent years emphasizing in-process reduction of waste generation via environmentally benign chemistry, material substitution and recovery/recycle of waste components. Most of these efforts have focused only on specific pollution reduction goals with emphasis on minimizing equipment and operating costs while attaining these goals. Unfortunately, focusing on single environmental endpoints neglects the reality that there are multiple environmental and human health impacts which are affected by process design optimization. The objective of this research, in an attempt to address these limitations, is to incorporate multiple environmental and human health considerations into chemical process designs using a methodology and software tool developed by the PI. The goal will be to illustrate how chemical process designs can change in response to different optimization targets. Targets will include traditional economic metrics of process performance, individual environmental impact indexes and cumulative weighted multiple environmental indexes. Specific research objectives are: (1) Incorporate an existing chemical process environmental assessment methodology and software tool to pinch analysis for VOC recovery from gaseous waste streams, (2) Demonstrate use of life-cycle assessment for substitute chemicals by applying to substitute refrigerants in the above case study, (3) Model the effects of property uncertainties on the pinch analysis study as they affect pollutants' environmental fate and transport characteristics, and (4) Create a computer-based hands-on demonstration for the Michigan Technological University Summer Youth Program. This grant is made pursuant to the joint NSF/Lucent Technologies Industrial Ecology Research Fellowships Program 1998.***