Chemical Process Routes Evaluation And Selection Based On Green Chemical Engineering

Reaction path selections, the analysis of a network of alternative reaction routes for the manufacture of a desired product and the identification of an optimal route, have been concerned for a long period of time. Since the investment has been made at the R&D stage, it is difficult to make fundamental changes, such as altering the reactants or operation conditions, which would incur the loss of all the effort, money and time invested, probably also the opportunity to launch the desired product in time.Recently, two extremely useful measures of potential environmental acceptability of chemical route selection are the atom utilization and environmental Quotient (EQ). However, regardless of their many environmental concerns, they still have some disadvantages as a guide to select the optimum synthesis route for chemical products. Many traditional chemical technologies, in spite of their high satisfying atom utilization or high reaction selectivity, have put great negative impacts on human healthy and environment, some of which are even to the extend to be shut off right away.Hence, we have developed the extended atom utilization concept and its application suggests that atom utilization could be enhanced by (1) improving the values of byproducts and (2) designing complex "product chains". We have also proposed an index-Route Selection Index-for assessing the feasibility of chemical process routes based on green chemistry theory and industrial practice. The index shows that it is possible to attempt quantitative evaluation of the alternative routes at the initial route selection stage when limited technical information, is available.