E-IMPACT - A ROBUST HAZARD-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT APPROACH FOR PROCESS INDUSTRIES

This paper proposes a hazard-based environmental impact assessment approach(e-impact), for evaluating the environmental impact during process design andretrofit stages. e-impact replaces the normalisation step of the conventionalimpact assessment phase. this approach compares the impact scores fordifferent options and assigns a relative score to each option. this eliminates thecomplexity of the normalisation step in the evaluation phase. the applicabilityof the e-impact has been illustrated through a case study of solvent selection inan acrylic acid manufacturing plant. e-impact is used in conjunction withaspen-hysys process simulator to develop mass and heat balance data.