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What is Green Engineering?
As defined by the US Environmental Protection
Agency, Green Engineering is "the design, commercialization,
and use of processes and products, which are feasible and economical
while minimizing 1) generation of pollution at the source and
2) risk to human health and the environment."
Guiding principles for how to achieve "green"
processes and products are detailed below, but the challenge
being addressed by CEBC is implementation of these ideas in
practice.
Twelve principles of Green Engineering*
have been listed as design guidelines for environmentally benign
processes:
- Designers need to strive to ensure that all material
and energy inputs and outputs are as inherently non-hazardous
as possible.
- It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean
up waste after it is formed.
- Separation and purification operations should be designed
to minimize energy consumption and materials use.
- Products, processes, and systems should be designed to
maximize mass, energy, space, and time efficiency.
- Products, processes, and systems should be "output pulled"
rather than "input pushed" through the use of energy and
materials.
- Embedded entropy and complexity must be viewed as an
investment when making design choices on recycle, reuse,
or beneficial disposition.
- Targeted durability, not immortality, should be a design
goal.
- Design for unnecessary capacity or capability (e.g.,
"one size fits all") solutions should be considered a design
flaw.
- Material diversity in multi-component products should
be minimized to promote disassembly and value retention.
- Design of products, processes and systems must include
integration and interconnectivity with available energy
and materials flows.
- Products, processes, and systems should be designed for
performance in a commercial "afterlife".
- Material and energy inputs should be renewable rather
than depleting.
* Anastas,
P. and Zimmerman, J. "Design Through the 12 Principles
of Green Engineering," Environmental Science and Technology.
March 1, 2003, ACS Publishing.
Also of interest to the chemical process industries
are the original Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry†.
- Prevention: It is better to prevent waste than
to treat or clean up waste after it has been created.
- Atom Economy: Synthetic methods should be designed
to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the
process into the final product.
- Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses: Wherever practicable,
synthetic methods should be designed to use and generate
substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health
and the environment.
- Designing Safer Chemicals: Chemical products should
be designed to effect their desired function while minimizing
their toxicity.
- Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries: The use of auxiliary
substances (e.g., solvents, separation agents, etc.) should
be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when
used.
- Design for Energy Efficiency: Energy requirements
of chemical processes should be recognized for their environmental
and economic impacts and should be minimized. If possible,
synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature
and pressure.
- Use of Renewable Feedstocks: A raw material or
feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting whenever
technically and economically practicable.
- Reduce Derivatives: Unnecessary derivatization
(use of blocking groups, protection/ deprotection, temporary
modification of physical/chemical processes) should be minimized
or avoided if possible, because such steps require additional
reagents and can generate waste.
- Catalysis: Catalytic reagents (as selective as
possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
- Design for Degradation: Chemical products should
be designed so that at the end of their function they break
down into innocuous degradation products and do not persist
in the environment.
- Real-time analysis for Pollution Prevention: Analytical
methodologies need to be further developed to allow for
real-time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the
formation of hazardous substances.
- Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention:
Substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical
process should be chosen to minimize the potential for chemical
accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.
†Anastas,
P. T.; Warner, J. C. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, Oxford
University Press: New York, 1998, p.3
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Last updated,
June 4, 2008
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Copyright ©2002-2007 The Center for Environmentally Beneficial
Catalysis, All Rights Reserved.
Direct all inquiries about this site to cebc@ku.edu
This
material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under
Grant No. EEC0310689
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the National Science Foundation.
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