Green Engineering Environmentally Conscious Design of Chemical Processes

A chemical engineer's guide to managing and minimizing environmental impact. Chemical processes are invaluable to modern society, yet they generate substantial quantities of wastes and emissions, and safely managing these wastes costs tens of millions of dollars annually. Green Engineeringis a complete professional's guide to the cost-effective design, commercialization, and use of chemical processes in ways that minimize pollution at the source, and reduce impact on health and the environment. This book also offers powerful new insights into environmental risk-based considerations in design of processes and products. First conceived by the staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Green Engineeringdraws on contributions from many leaders in the field and introduces advanced risk-based techniques including some currently in use at the EPA. Coverage includes: Engineering chemical processes, products, and systems to reduce environmental impacts Approaches for evaluating emissions and hazards of chemicals and processes Defining effective environmental performance targets Advanced approaches and tools for evaluating environmental fate Early-stage design and development techniques that minimize costs and environmental impacts In-depth coverage of unit operation and flowsheet analysis The economics of environmental improvement projects Integration of chemical processes with other material processing operations Lifecycle assessments: beyond the boundaries of the plant Increasingly, chemical engineers are faced with the challenge of integrating environmental objectives into design decisions. Green Engineeringgives them the technical tools they need to do so.

DAVID T. ALLEN, Reese Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin, was the 2000 recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering for his contributions to air quality and pollution prevention engineering and environmental engineering education.

DAVID R. SHONNARD, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan Technological University, is a 1998 recipient of the NSF/Lucent Technologies Foundation Industrial Ecology Research Fellowship for research that integrates environmental impact assessment with process design. Other related awards include an NSF-funded repository for pollution prevention curriculum development materials.

With contributions by authors from US EPA and Industry.