Environmental Impact Assessment
SuperPro and EnviroPro Designer facilitate the following tasks related to environmental issues:
- Calculate Waste Generation from Manufacturing Facilities
- Characterize Waste Streams
- Calculate Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
- Model and Optimize Wastewater Treatment Processes
- Model and Optimize Water Purification and Recycling Processes
- Model and Evaluate Air Pollution Control Processes
Waste Generation from Manufacturing Facilities
SuperPro Designer performs thorough material and energy balances of integrated manufacturing facilities and calculates the amount and type of waste generated per unit of product as well as per unit of time. Waste streams are classified as Liquid, Solid, and Emissions (vapor).
The following table is from the Environmental Impact Report. It provides info on the allocation of each component that enters a manufacturing facility. This clearly shows how much of each raw material ends up in the product and how much is wasted. Other tables in the same report provide info on the amounts and types of waste generated, the environmental properties of waste streams, amount of regulated chemicals (e.g., SARA 313 and 33/50 chemicals), various Pollution Indexes, etc.
Labor Cost Table
The labor demand is estimated by summing up the labor requirement of each operation. Again the user has the option to override what the program calculates. The labor unit cost and the multipliers for fringe benefits and supervision are specified at the Section level. A Section is a set of unit procedures that can represent an identifiable part of a long process. For instance, the flowsheet from which the following table was extracted was divided into four sections (Product Synthesis, Isolation and Purification, Final Purification, and Crystallization).
Procedures that cycle independently display a clock icon on the left of their name (see figure below) that denotes their mode of operation. This icon is part of the procedure’s style and can be hidden by de-selecting the “Independent Cycle Sign” check box in the procedure’s icon style tab (right-click on the procedure’s icon and select Style \ Edit…).
Characterization of Waste Streams
SuperPro and EnviroPro Designer calculate a number of stream environmental properties (see figure below) based on the composition of streams and the component contribution to these properties. This information along with some other pertinent data are used to characterize waste streams from a regulatory and environmental impact viewpoint.
