Seeking cost-efficient and sustainable materials in chemical engineering projects?

"When choosing materials for your chemical engineering project, conducting a comprehensive material analysis is vital. This includes assessing the entire life cycle of materials—from extraction and processing to disposal or recycling. Factors to consider include energy use during production, durability, and environmental impact. Biopolymers, sourced from renewable biomass, are increasingly favored for their lower carbon footprint. However, it's crucial to strike a balance between environmental benefits and economic viability to ensure your project remains cost-effective."

Green chemistry helps you choose sustainable materials and methods. It focuses on reducing waste, avoiding harmful substances, and using energy wisely. For instance, using catalysts that need less energy can cut waste and pollution. By adopting these practices, you protect the environment, save money by cutting waste, and make processes more efficient. It's a smart way to support a healthier planet and improve how your business operates.

Advanced control systems play a crucial role in achieving optimal process performance. These systems enable real-time monitoring and adjustment of various parameters within the production process. By continuously analyzing data and making necessary adjustments, businesses can ensure that their processes operate at peak efficiency levels. This not only improves product quality and consistency but also helps in reducing energy consumption and waste generation.

While carrying out process optimisation, one has to keep in mind Overall life cycle cost i.e. lowest facility capex does not necessarily ensure lowest opex . Therefore while selecting optimised facility lesser energy intensive option with minimum maintenance requirements and least emissions ( and with reduced GHG) should be given more credit in order to achieve least life cycle cost.

Indeed waste products of u/s or d/s industry can be used for overall cost benefit and to minimise new raw materials requirements. Say for example waste products of one process systems may find applications in process systems in either in u/s or d/s industry. So holistic point of view is need of the hour.

Another important factor to consider is customer perception of the project and the whole company when sustainability is an objective. Using sustainable materials could, depending on the project, lead to a spike in sales and higher customer satisfaction. Many people are willing to pay a higher price for environmentally friendly manufactured goods. The use of sustainable materials could also lead to winning more customers from the competition, as the environment is increasingly an important issue in the eyes of the public. This factor means that the use of sustainable materials, even when costly, is sometimes the smartest economic decision.

I believe efficient and structured monitoring and data packages for through analyze of the project and related assessments by specials in all aspects of project from the start to the end is a must beside other topics mentioned here.