Environmental And Economic Evaluation Of Structured Corrugation SiC-foam Packing

Structured corrugation SiC-foam packing(SCFP-SiC)is a new kind of structured packing.Compared with the traditional structured corrugation metal packing(SCMP),which is widely used in the distillation and separation processes today,its technical superiority has been verified in the previous experimental validation and CFD simulation.But to date,there is no study focusing on its environment impacts and economic feasibility,which is essential to evaluate before it is applied in actual chemical industry.In this paper,the life cycle assessment(LCA)and life cycle cost(LCC)method are used in the environmental and economic evaluation of structured packings for the first time.The system boundaries for life cycle assessment and the simulation process used in the using phase is established,as well as the environmental and economic evaluation system using in the whole life cycle.So the environmental and economic evaluation and comparison in both production and using phase can be made for the two structured packings.In the production process,respiratory inorganics,global warming,terrestrial ecotoxicity,non-renewable energy and human toxicity are the most critical environment impacts for both the two structured packing.Compared with SCMP packing,the environmental impact of SCFP-SiC is much higher.Producing 1 m3 SCFP-SiC causes 2.5 times higher overall environment impact than SCMP of the same volume.The production cost of SCFP-Si C is also higher than SCMP,while it will be less affected by the price fluctuations of raw materials in the market and has a better stability compared with SCMP from the sensitivity and probability analysis.In using phase,SCFP-SiC shows a more environment friendly and economic efficiency result than SCMP in both two cases: decreasing the tower height to decrease the fixed environmental impact and fixed cost or decreasing the reflux ratio to decrease the variable environmental impact and variable cost.From the point of environment and economy,while SCFP-SiC shows its short in the production process compared with SCMP,it has a great advantage in the using phase.Considering its remarkable corrosion resistance and high mass transfer efficiency,SCFP-SiC shows its superiority in the separation of hard-separation or corrosive material systems thinking from the idea of life cycle.Therefore,SCFP-SiC will be a hopeful substitution of SCMP in separation processes from both the environment and economic view.