| Industrial symbiosis is an eco-industrial model for industrial parks to achieve sustainable development.In this model,wastes generated by the upstream enterprises can be used as raw materials for downstream enterprises.The production chain in the symbiotic system can be extended constantly to optimize resource use in a region or enterprise cluster in order to minimize waste generation and environmental impacts.Chemical industry faces critical issues concerning large energy consumption and pollution emissions so that energy-saving and emission-reduction as well as design for environment in industry parks promote this sector to achieve the sustainable development.The study is aimed at theoretically and pratically assessing effects of energy saving and emission reduction as well as environmental benefits owing to industrial symbiosis.Taking chemical industry as the case study,this study quantifies the environmental benefits of inter-organizational industrial symbiosis by life cycle assessment(LCA)and assesses in-plant energy-saving and emission-reduction based on the data envelopment analysis model(DEA).The results provide theoretical implications and technical support for sustainable development in the industry.The main research contents and results are as follows:(1)To determine energy-saving and emission-reduction performed by the industrial symbiosis system,this research integrates LCA with system expansion to evaluate four categories of environmental impacts caused by material exchange,that is,primary energy,greenhouse gas(GHG)emission,acidification potential,and eutrophication potential.The results show that all material exchange patterns correlate positively with the separate four environmental impacts,benefitting to the environment.These impacts are avoided by the 12 types of symbiosis performances in that 13,630 TJ of primary energy,1.218 million t CO2 e of greenhouse gas,5,054.95 t SO2 e of acidification,and 215 t PO43+e of eutrophication are diminished.Steam exchanges share the most significant environmental benefits.Hence,this study facilitates spontaneous material exchange for establishing industrial symbiosis system.(2)Based on driving factor analysis,an indicator scheme is established for measuring energy-saving and emission-reduction effect of an ammonia plant,including four energy saving and consumption reduction indexes,seven pollutant emissions indexes,and five waste recycling indexes.The study combines factor analysis with DEA to assess the effect of energy conservation in chemical enterprises.The results state that all the three case enterprises shared a comprehensive technical efficiency,indicating a high energy-saving and emission-reduction efficiency,which of the thermal power plant was largest(0.867)while the ammonia plant lowest(0.791).Even though the enterprises along the production chain have invest a large amount of money and energy in technology and management,but potentials for energy-saving and emission-reduction still exist. |
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