CHG 519

Environmental Pollution Engineering

Module VIII
Engineering
for
Sustainable Development
 Scientist discover the world that now is

While Engineers invent the world that is to

come, we are future builders. We, as Chemical
Engineers, shape the world through our
products, process designs, innovations …
We in cooperation with other disciplines meet
the needs of our society

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 The Problem …. The need to for CHANGE

The way we currently operate is not sustainable – it threatens

opportunities for future generations to develop
Depletion of natural resources
Poisoning of planet Earth
This cannot continue, CHANGE is needed
The way we consume can’t continue
- in 2005, world oil consumption was approx. 30 million barrels annually
proven reserves then was approx. 1,688 billion barrels
- in 2013, consumption has increased to 91 million barrels annually
proven reserves approx. 1,688 billion barrels
that is, 10 – 20 yrs of use depending on the increase in energy consumption
(see chart on next slide)

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 Man’s development over time

Hunters and gatherers – lifestyle was nomadic

2/3 of food were fruits and vegetables
1/3 meat of wild animals
Agriculture – as population  , competition for food 

Industrial Production – Along the line came so many inventions,

steam engine, light bulb, and thus began the industrial revolution,

R&D is on the increase, and so many strange substances (synthetic

chemicals) are being introduced into the environment

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 Man’
Man’s Current use of the environment

Very unSustainable (continuously takes without giving back)

5 Linear/Open loop System

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 History of oil consumption vs. Proved reserves

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 As seen from slide 5, the natural environment is the source of all substances
that sustain human life. We take food, water, fuels, minerals, all forms of raw
materials from it , and use this same environment as a receptor (sink) of our
waste
“Technology is a queer thing. It brings you gifts with one hand, and stabs
you in the back with the other.” C. P. Snow

A lot of critics have also argued that technology is the root cause of the
lack of sustainability in society. That is to say
Halting technology =>s return to a more natural environment

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 The way forward
Treatment does not solve the environmental problem – it only transfers it
from one medium to another, still in the same environment

Waste Management (of today) must conserve resources as well as protect the
environment in order to ensure Sustainable Development
Sustainable - the ability to continue supplying/maintaining
Development - Providing basic needs for life sustenance: food, shelter, housing, etc

Sustainable development has been defined as:

“Development that meets the needs of the people
today without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs”

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 Sustainable Development

Is all about striking a balance between:

The poor and the rich – the rich fulfill absurd desires while
many are starving, can’t go to school, dying of disease etc

Current and future generation

Human kind and nature

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 Sustainable Development

Is about People – Planet – Profit (Triple P)

Communities Prosperity for the company

and workers – owner and workers
Environmental
burden

10
 (Profit) (Planet)

11 (People)
12
13
 Basic principles of sustainable Development

Resource consumption to be minimized

Cycles of consumption of non-renewable
materials should be closed
Preference should be given to renewable
materials and energy sources
Contribution to the common good and not
just the private good (the need to avoid the current situation
where the riches 20% of the world population is consuming approx. 80% of the
world's resources)

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 The way forward - for the planet

There is a need to mimic the working

cycles of nature and close the loop -
Closing the loop, interacting one with
another, taking less from the environment
and discharging less to the environment

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 So what’s wrong with the open loop (linear) system of slide 5?

Not working:-
Resource Depletion/consumption – population and consumption
growth exponential, but resource production growth linear
Environmental Problems

What works?
The bio-geo-chemical cycles of nature.
Bio → involves life (plants, animals and man)
geo → atmosphere, water, rocks and soil might be included
Chemical → what is being cycled is a chemical e.g. carbon,
nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, calcium, water
etc.,
These cycles are known to continuously sustain life on earth – iff they are not
disrupted by man – recall the food chain, the bell jar experiment, carbon cycle,
16 nitrogen cycle etc..
 Closing the loop

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 Sustainable Development

“We have not inherited the land from our parents, we are borrowing it
from our children and our future generations unborn” Chief Seattle

The earth is what we

owe future
generations, remember
it is a loan from them,
so handle with care
and hand over intact.

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 Industrial Ecology (IE)
can help promote
Sustainable Development (SD)

It’s all about copying nature – emulating nature’s cycles

The cradle-to cradle concept promotes SD, like natural systems, it

rejects the concept of waste, making industries relate one with another

Simply put – “one mans waste is another's raw material”

(Recycle/Reuse)

One industry’s wastes are another’s raw material – IE

The Eco-industrial park in Kalundborg
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 Kalundborg (Denmark)
– An industrial ecosystem or symbiosis

By 1975

Asnaes Power Station (1959)- Denmark’s largest coal fired power plant (1,500MW –
produces heat for the town of Kalundborg (4,500households) and other industries in the
estate (was initially using underground water)

Statoil refinery (1961) -Denmark’s largest refinery

Gyproc (1972) - A Swedish company producing gypsum wallboard (plasterboard)
Novo Nordisk – a multinational biotech company producing pharmaceuticals, including
40% of the world’s supply of insulin and industrial enzymes

20 The Municipality of Kalundborg – supplies district heating and water to homes

 The story of Kalundborg - contd

By 1985

In 1976, regulations restricted discharge of organics into sea, Novo Nordisk

gave it free to farmers as fertilizers, via pipelines and trucks
In 1979, the Asnaes power station sold fly ash to cement factories.
In 1981, due to the oil crisis in the middle east, Asnaes started to supply heat to
Kalundborg
In 1982, Asnaes delivered steam to Statoil and Novo nordisk
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 The story of Kalundborg - contd

By 2000

In 1987, Statoil piped waste cooling water to Asnaes power station

In 1989, Novo Nordisk switched from Lake Tisso to well water
Asnaes power station started fish farming to solve the problem of thermal pollution
In 1990, Statoil began selling molten sulphur to Kemira –used to manufacture sulphuric acid
In 1991, Statoil sent treated wastewater to Asnaes for utility use
In 1992, Statoil sent desulphurized waste gas to Asnaes
In 1993, Asnaes supplied gypsum (it installed a desulphurization unit to remove sulphur from its flue
22 gases, to produce calcium sulphate –gypsum, which is the main raw material of plasterboard at
Gyproc) to Gyproc. Gyproc thereby stops importation from spain
 Sustainable Treatment ( the 4Rs))

Reducing – unnecessary packaging for products, this reduces the raw material
at source
Reusing – using products in its original form ( not modified)
Recycling – converts these wastes to raw materials that can be reused to
manufacture new products
Recovery – this requires a process to remove the material from the waste eg
energy recovery or material recovery (separating oil from wastewater so that the oil
can be used in the soap industry , ie either same or another, it has been shown that
recovery of metals from solid waste really pays).
Others
Rethinking – about waste before taking action (see waste as a resource)
Renovation – developing innovative techniques to solve the waste problem
Regulation – without regulation nothing will be implemented
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 Assessing Sustainability I

How do I know if my product/activity is

sustainable?
The Sustainability Metrics
This is a set of indicators that can be used to measure
sustainability performance of an operating unit:
Environmental indicators
–
–
–
Economic indicators
Social indicators
} See attached document
“THE SUSTAINABILITY METRICS”
for detailed information

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 Environmental indicators

Resource Usage used to calculate Environmental

Emissions, effluents and waste } burden

Atmospheric Impact Aquatic impact Impacts to land

Atmospheric acidification Aquatic acidification Hazardous solid waste
Global warming burden
Aquatic oxygen demand Non hazardous solid waste
Human health burden
Ozone depletion burden Ecotoxicity to aquatic life
Photochemical smog burden Eutrohication

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 Assessing Sustainability II

How do I know if my product/activity is sustainable?

Life-
Life-cycle-
cycle-analysis (Assessment) LCA

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 What’s Life Cycle Assessment (or Analysis) all about?

Both a concept and methodology for auditing and

evaluating the environmental performance of a product,
process, or activity throughout its entire existence from
raw material acquisition to ultimate disposal (cradle-to-
grave – see next slide)

A tool that allows the total environmental impact of a

design, an activity or a product to be analysed. It can be
used during different phases of the design process.

An effective way of comparing alternatives in the design

27 process
 Product Life cycle

This can be cumbersome, complex and time-intensive,

therefore the need to define a boundary
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 The three-way catalytic converter
Preamble The Problem: Photochemical smog in Los Angeles
The solution: The three way catalytic converter

H2O, N2, CO2

Vehicle exhaust
HC, NOx, CO, CO2, VOCs
Required the introduction of
unleaded fuel, thereby putting an
Palladium, rhodium platinum end to lead pollution from this
source

Production of every 3-way car exhaust catalyst requires

4.5g of platinum and 15g of palladium. For every gram of
these metals, 300kg of ore is mined
Market leaders in precious metals is situated in the
Siberian industrial town of Norlisk – the world’s largest
polluter

So using the total LCA, is the 3-way converter sustainable?

Are there other alternatives to preventing pollution from cars?
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 LCA Methodology

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 The Life cycle Model (input- output quantitative model)

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 The LCA approach consist of 4 components:

Goal definition and scoping;

Inventory analysis

Impact assessment

Improvement assessment (Impact Mitigation)

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 The LCA Procedure

Indicate order of procedural steps

33 Possible iterations
 The LCA Procedure - explained

Goal and scope definition – Product to study and the

purpose of the LCA study are specified here
Inventory Analysis – construction of the life cycle model and
calculation of the emissions produced and the resources used during
the life cycle
Impact assessment – the emissions and resources are
related to various environmental problems through the act of
classification and characterization. These impacts are then put on the
same scale through weighing.
Improvement assessment – what can be done to reduce
the impacts uncovered in the impact assessment step

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 Goal definition and scoping

Clear definition of the purpose for conducting the study

Identification of the boundaries which define the life cycle system

once boundaries have been determined, a system flow diagram can

be developed to pictorially describe the system

Boundaries within a complete LCA:

Cradle to entry gate

Entry gate to exit gate
Exit gate to grave

For the bar soap production process in slide 36, the system boundary is the
manufacturing process – Entry gate to exit gate
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 Product life cycle for bar soap production

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 Inventory analysis
Identification and quantification of raw materials, energy
requirements, waste generated, products and by-products.
(Input –Output analysis / Material and Energy Balance)

This is done over the boundary defined in step 1

Gathering of data from any and every possible source

(government and industrial databases, literature reports, books, laboratory test data,
and also study-specific data)
S
UT

Materials
P
IN

ENVIRONMENTAL BURDENS:
Energy Emissions Emissions to air and water;
Process Residue solid waste

S
UT
TP
Product
U

(goods and services)

O

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 Impact assessment

Using the data obtained in the inventory assessment

A quantitative and/or qualitative examination of potential
environmental and human health effects associated with the
use of resources (materials and energy) and environmental
releases.
Impact assessment consist of three main steps:
Classification
Characterization
Valuation/ weighing

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 Impact assessment –
Assigning inventory items to impact categories

Several methods exist: Matrices, network or the descriptive checklist

Interaction matrix method – identifies cause-effect relationship between
specific activities and environmental parameters

3 steps involved in Impact Assessment:

Classification (impact identification) - Inventory data is assigned to
environmental areas of interest (impact categories) and these usually
include:
Abiotic (non-renewable) depletion potential
Biotic depletion potential
Global warming potential
Ozone depletion potential
Aquatic/terrestrial ecotoxicity
Acidification potential
Human toxicity
39 Photochemical oxidation creation potential
Nutrification potential
 Characterization (impact significance)
this is about identifying if impact is significant and to what degree

Description of criteria/weighing scale used for evaluating the

significance of an impact
Weighing scale
0 1 3 5
Criteria
Legal/Regulatory No legal or Both legal and
Requirements (L) Regulatory
Regulatory regulatory requirement Permit Required
Requirement
requirements exist

Risk Factor (R) No risk Low risk Moderate risk High risk
Frequency of Impact (F)
Not applicable Low frequency Moderate frequency High frequency

Important (I)
Not applicable Low importance Moderate importance High importance

Public Perception(P) Moderate public

Not applicable Low public interest High public interest
interest
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 Impact Evaluation and Ranking

The impacts are quantified, combined and weighted to produce a single indicator

For a particular industry:

Impact Ranking & Quantification criteria

Overall impact
Environmental areas of interest
L R F I P F+I L+R+F+I+P rating

Abiotic depletion potential

1 3 3 3 3 6 13 Significant
Energy depletion potential
1 3 3 5 3 8 15 Significant
Global warming potential
3 3 5 5 5 10 21 Significant
Ozone depletion potential
3 1 1 3 1 4 9 Not Significant
Aquatic/terrestrial eco-toxicity
3 3 1 3 1 4 11 Significant
Acidification potential
3 3 5 3 3 8 17 Significant
Human toxicity
3 3 3 5 3 8 17 Significant
Photochemical oxidant creation
3 3 5 5 3 10 19 Significant
potential
Nutrification potential
1 1 1 1 1 2 5 Not Significant
41 Noise pollution
1 3 3 3 1 6 11 Significant
 Other methods:

Convert the inventory data to common units so that results can be aggregated,
all the contribtions to a specific environmental parameter, e.g. GWP, are
recalculated to their carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO2)
Generator burning gasoline to produce energy (electicity)
So overall impact to GWP can be summed

Emission from generator Relative GWP

Pollutants (gmole/MJ energy) (kg CO2/kg pollutant)
CO2 50.00 1
NOx 0.20 200
VOC 0.01 30
SOx 0.30 0
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 Leopald Interaction Matrix - combines 2 & 3

Gives a visual display of impacted items (environmental parameters)-on the vertical

axis and major action causing them, on the horizontal axis

A slash (/) is placed in the box where significant interaction is expected

Blocks are now evaluated individually, a number between 1 and 10 is placed in the
upper left-hand corner to indicate relative Magnitude of the impact, while using the
same scale a number in the lower right-hand corner indicates relative importance of the
impact
Actions causing impact

M
. I

43
 A typical Leopald interaction matrix (a few rows)

44
 Improvement assessment (Impact Mitigation)

Measures are suggested to reduce (mitigate)

the total environmental burden

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 A case study on two detergents
- simplified deductions from a much detailed study

Goal and scope definition

– The two detergents have equivalent cleaning efficiency
– Comparison made on the basis of 1 kg of detergent
– entry gate to exit gate

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47
 Inventory analysis
– based on the flowchart

48
 Contd. from slide 48

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 Comparison of the inventory results (some) .
Emission (g/kg)

50
 Another diagram focusing on energy parameter

Note that energy is an important parameter for management of an industrial process

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 Impact assessment

Aggregating the inventory result for characterization

52
 Normalised characterisation result of the detergent study

53
 Impact assessment – weighted results

54
 Different purposes (Goal definition) – different result presentations

Dominance analysis - this investigates what parts of the life

cycle give rise to the greatest (dominant) environmental impact

The analysis allows for identifying where improvements are most

wanted or needed.

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 For detergent 2, emissions to air are presented below for each of the
activities in its life cycle (processes from A to M and transports)

56
 Grouping the activities in the lifecycle into more
general categories

Above is a dominance analysis concerning the use of energy in the different part of a
detergent’s life cycle (cradle-to-grave). The results show that the
environmental impact of the detergent depends much on the consumer’s behaviour
with regard to dosage, washing temperature and frequency of washing. Small difference
between the two detergents ( slide 53 & 54) is of little importance in comparison to the
importance of the consumer’s behaviour
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 Commercial methods
Eco-indicator 95
Eco-indicator 99
Commercial Softwares
Traci
Ecoscan
SimaPro
Idemat

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