Based on the principles and metrics of green chemistry and sustainable development, biocatalysis is both a green and sustainable technology. This is largely a result of the spectacular advances in molecular biology and biotechnology achieved in the past two decades. Protein engineering has enabled the optimization of existing enzymes and the invention of entirely new biocatalytic reactions that were previously unknown in Nature. It is now eminently feasible to develop enzymatic transformations to fit predefined parameters, resulting in processes that are truly sustainable by design. This approach has successfully been applied, for example, in the industrial synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition to the use of protein engineering, other aspects of biocatalysis engineering, such as substrate, medium, and reactor engineering, can be utilized to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness and, hence, the sustainability of biocatalytic reactions. Furthermore, immobilization of an enzyme ...

/pdf/role-of-biocatalysis-in-sustainable-chemistry-5b3e0qe0ep.pdf

Role of Biocatalysis in Sustainable Chemistry

This chapter discusses the concepts of CO2 emission, global warming, and climate change with an emphasis on their environmental impacts. Specifically, the chapter reviews different sources of atmospheric CO2 emissions and recent advances in the implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. In this chapter, the intricate relationship between CO2 emission, global warming, and climate change was explicitly explained, and CO2 mitigation strategies in selected industrial sectors such as power, cement, iron, and steel as well as the petrochemical industry were presented. An overview of process integration concepts for energy minimization in environmental sustainability studies was highlighted. The current state of research in this field was reviewed, while future prospects in the application of process synthesis techniques to decrease the high energy and material requirement during CO2 capture were suggested. Finally, CO2 emission trend since the beginning of the first industrial revolution was discussed alongside current international treaties, limitations, and forecasts about greenhouse gas emission.

CO2 emission sources, greenhouse gases, and the global warming effect

Process intensification offers the potential to drastically reduce the energy consumption and cost of producing chemicals from both bulk and distributed feedstocks. This review article aims to offer an extensive survey on state-of-the-art process systems engineering (PSE) approaches for process intensification. From both academic and industrial perspectives, this paper provides an overview of the development of various process intensification technologies, specifically those under the categories of separation, reaction, hybrid reaction/separation, and alternative energy sources. A current status analysis in the areas of modeling and simulation is then provided. An indicative list of PSE publications specialized on process intensification is presented to illustrate the progresses made so far towards the deployment of novel process intensification technologies. We also highlight some recent advances for the modeling, design, and synthesis of intensified systems, as well as for the assessment of their controllability/operability/safety performance. Key open questions in these areas include: (i) how to systematically derive intensified designs, and (ii) how to ensure the operability and optimality of the derived intensified structures while delivering their expected functionality.

An overview of process systems engineering approaches for process intensification: State of the art

Anjan K. Tula

Papers

A computer-aided software-tool for sustainable process synthesis-intensification

Process synthesis, design and analysis using a process-group contribution method

OptCAMD: An optimization-based framework and tool for molecular and mixture product design

Computer-aided process intensification: Challenges, trends and opportunities

Sustainable process design & analysis of hybrid separations