Estimation of Energy Consumption in Chemical Processes
A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2018)
Special Issue Editors
Interests: LCA; green chemistry; bio-based industry; early stage assessment; carbon and water footprint; energy from biomass; industrial symbiosis; industrial ecology; water-energy nexus; sustainable productions and waste management
Interests: environmental chemistry; chemistry of cultural heritage; life cycle assessment (LCA)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue focuses on the methodologies to evaluate the energy requirements in the synthesis of innovative chemicals at both laboratory and industrial scale. In fact, energy data for synthesis (e.g. electric and heat provision during reaction, distillation and separation requirements, etc.) are required to perform life cycle evaluation of the environmental and economic sustainability. This holistic approach (e.g. Life Cycle Assessment - LCA) is requested since necessary to identify direct and embodied burdens due to the synthetic pathway and assess the overall footprint. Unfortunately, this procedure is far from easy, since the identification of the energy flows involved in the chemical synthesis represents one of the hardest part of the LCA studies for different reasons.
First, in general this kind of information are part of industrial confidentiality, in particular when the synthesis is carried out at industrial scale. Second, sometimes LCA practitioners are not familiar with the energetic balances within a chemical reactor or plant and several expertise are required. Third, no adequate methodology to estimate energy requirements has been proposed yet in literature to support a life cycle study of a chemical product, in particular in the case of bio-based commodities. Four, in many cases new chemical processes have been developed only at early stage and the modelling of the same process at the industrial scale cannot rely on direct measurements, but only on estimations. Therefore, in order to support researchers in making the right choices during the LCA simulation, an innovative set of scientific tools are required to support the assessment of the sustainability in the synthesis of new chemicals. Manuscripts describing the development of innovative and simple methodologies to evaluate the energetic requirements of chemicals (in particular bio-based commodities) and support life cycle evaluation at both laboratory and industrial scale are highly welcome. Papers submitted to this Special Issue will be subject to a peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of their contents.
Dr. Daniele Cespi
Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Passarini
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- energy consumption
- chemical synthesis
- industrial processes
- laboratory scale
- LCA
- process modeling
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