Improvements in Bio-Based Building Blocks Production Through Process Intensification and Sustainability Concepts

Book excerpt: Improvements in Bio-Based Building Blocks Production Through Process Intensification and Sustainability Concepts discusses new information on the production and cost of bio-based building blocks. From a technical point-of-view, almost all industrial materials made from fossil resources can be substituted using bio-based counterparts. However, the cost of bio-based production in many cases exceeds the cost of petrochemical production. In addition, new products must be proven to perform at least as good as their petrochemical equivalents, have a lower environmental impact, meet consumer demand for environmentally-friendly products, factor in population growth, and account for limited supplies of non-renewables. This book outlines the application of process intensification techniques which allow for the generation of clean, efficient and economical processes for bio-based chemical blocks production. - Includes synthesis and process design strategies for intensified processes - Describes multi-objective optimization applied to the production of bio-based building blocks - Presents the controllability of processes where the production of bio-based building blocks is involved - Provides examples using aspen and MATLAB - Introduces several sustainable indexes to evaluate production processes - Presents process intensification techniques to improve performance in productive processes