Schedule

Start time:
(a) CHP Plant
No.
1
2
3
4

0.00
Operation
Fuel Loading
Water Tube Boiler
HPS Turbine
MPS Turbine

(b) Palm oil production : 60 t/h

Operation
No.
1
FFB Loading
2
FFB Loading
3
Sterilization
4
Sterilization
5
Sterilization
6
Sterilization
7
Treshing
8
Digestion
9
Screw Pressing
10
Screening
11
Clarification
12
Desanding
13
Centrifuge
14
Purification
15
Vacuum Drying
16
CPO Storage

a
b
a
b
c
d

Duration (min)

Duration (hr)

Start time

End time

x
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Duration (min)
30.00
30.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
40.00
30.00
19.00
0.00
120.00
0.00
20.00
20.00
30.00
0.00

Duration (hr)
0.50
0.50
1.67
1.67
1.67
1.67
0.67
0.50
0.32
0.00
2.00
0.00
0.33
0.33
0.50
0.00

Start time
0.00
0.50
0.50
0.50
1.00
1.00
2.17
2.83
3.33
3.65
3.65
5.65
5.65
5.65
5.98
6.48

End time
0.50
1.00
2.17
2.17
2.67
2.67
2.83
3.33
3.65
3.65
5.65
5.65
5.98
5.98
6.48
6.48

Total duration for one batch of 60 t/h FFB:

6.48

(c) Palm Kernel production

Operation
No.
1
Depericarping
2
Nut Cracking
3
Winnowing
4
Hydrocyclone
5
Kernel Drying
6
Kernel Storage
(d) Pellet Production: 2 t/h
Operation
No.
1
EFB Loading
2
EFB Shredder
3
Hammer Mill
4
Dryer
5
Pelletizer
(e) DLF Production: 1 t/h
Operation
No.
1
EFB Loading
2
Fibre Hammer Mill
3
Drum Dryer
4
Sieving
5
DLF Machine + Baling
(f) Fibre Mat Production:
Operation
No.
1
EFB Loading
2
Fibre Hammer Mill
3
Drum Dryer
4
Knitting Machine

hr

Duration (min)

Duration (hr)

Start time

End time

Duration (min)

Duration (hr)

Start time

End time

Duration (min)

Duration (hr)

Start time

End time

Duration (min)

Duration (hr)

Start time

End time

FFBLoading
FFBLoading
Sterilization
Sterilization
Sterilization
Sterilization
Treshing
Digestion
ScrewPressing
Screening
Clarification
Desanding
Centrifuge
Purification
VacuumDrying
CPOStorage
0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

Electricity
(From Grid)

Air
Water

Cooling Water

Cooling
Tower
HP Steam

MP Steam

Air
LP Steam

Water Tube
Boiler

Solid Fuel

HP Turbine

MP Turbine

Air
Natural Gas

Flue Gas
Gas Turbine

HRSG

Air
Fire Tube
Boiler

Air
Electricity
(To Grid)

Microturbine

Chilled Water

Mechanical
Chiller
Air
Absorption
Chiller

Gas Engine

BioMethane
CO2
Biogas

PSA

CO2
Anaerobic
Digester

Amine
Scubber

CO2
Waste Water

Membrane
Separation

High Rate
Anaerobic
Reactor

CO2
Cryogenic
Separation

CO2
Water
Scrubber

Compost
Settling Tank

Anaerobic
Pond System

Treated POME

Simultaneous Consideration of Safety, Health, Environment and Economic

at Preliminary Design Stage via Multi-Objective Optimisation
Abstract
In recent years, due to the increasingly stringent legal requirements and escalating
environmental control costs, the concept of sustainable development has been adapted by
most of the chemical companies without neglecting the economic performance of their
companies. Due to aforementioned situation, chemical industries require a systematic tool to
conduct the sustainability assessment on the process synthesis and design in order to obtain a
sustainable process configuration. This paper presents a systematic design framework for
chemical processes at the preliminary design stage. This framework consists of five stages
which are development of process flow diagram (PFD) and process simulation, development
of input-output model from simulation, evaluation of the four aspects (economic
performance, health, safety and environment) with linkage to input-output model,
development of a multi-objective optimisation model and re-simulation of the optimised
chemical process design. Gross profit, Health Quotient Index (HQI), Inherent Safety Index
(ISI) and Waste Reduction (WAR) algorithm are used to assess the economic performance,
health, safety and environmental impact of the process respectively. Fuzzy optimisation
approach is adapted in this work to solve the four aspects simultaneously as they are often
conflicting in process synthesis and optimisation of a chemical plant. The deviation between
the solution obtained from the developed mathematical optimisation model and the process
simulator is less than 10%. To demonstrate the proposed framework, a case study on 1,4butanediol production plant is solved.

1. Introduction and Literature Review

During the past decades, chemical process synthesis and design often pay much
attention on the technical and economic performance while other aspects such as
occupational health, safety and environmental impacts are either not considered in decision
making or used as the design criteria only at the final stages of design (Azapagic et al., 2004;
Azapagic et al., 2006). Due to the low priority given to the safety, health and environment
aspects during the process design, the probability of getting plant accidents is high. This can
be proved by the incident of Bhopal and Flixborough disasters. Public concern for safety,
health and environmental impact of industrial process has increased after these incidents.
Economic, health, safety and environment aspects should be considered simultaneously
during the screening of the alternative chemical processes in the earlier design stages in order
to develop a sustainable chemical process.
In the past, majority of the research on chemical process synthesis and design pay
much attention on the economic and environment aspects (Kniel et al., 1996; Azapagic and
1

Clift, 1998). Chen and Shonnard (2004) presented a design framework that incorporates with
optimisation and consists of reaction route selection coupled with creation of a base case flow
sheet for the purpose of process screening. In their framework, the environmental impact of
the processes are evaluated by using EFRAT (Shonnard and Hiew, 2000) while the indicator
used in evaluating the economic performance is varied according to the design stages. Li et al.
(2009) also presented an integrated methodology for design and optimisation of chemical
process based on economic and environmental aspects. However, the main focus of the
integrated methodology presented by Li et al. (2009) is on the separation processes as these
processes occupy more than 70% of energy consumption of the whole plant. Other than
economic and environmental aspects, some researchers have considered the safety, health or
social aspects in their developed framework to determine a sustainable process configuration
as the rules and regulations implemented by the authority to minimise health, safety and
environmental impact of industrial process is getting more stringent. For instance, Azapagic
et al. (2006) and Othman et al. (2010) have considered economic, environmental, and social
aspects in their developed approach for sustainable assessment and design selection. Besides,
Al-Sharrah et al. (2010) presented a multi-objective optimisation model which considers
environmental impact, economic performance and operational risk simultaneously for
petrochemical industry. Recently, Liew et al. (2012) has developed a systematic approach in
screening of the sustainable chemical reaction pathways in the research and development
stage via fuzzy optimisation. Four aspects such as economic performance, health, safety and
environmental impact have been considered by Liew et al. (2012) in their developed
approach. However, the low level of process knowledge at the research and development
stage (Hurme and Rahman, 2005) reduce the accuracy in process screening. Based on Gentile
et al. (2003), Hassim and Hurme (2010) and Iriarte et al. (2012), the safety, occupational
health and the environmental impact of a chemical process in preliminary design stage are
necessary to be evaluated to ensure the chemical process design is sustainable. Thus, it is
essential for the process designers to do process screening at the preliminary design stage as
the level of process knowledge is higher with an acceptable degree of freedom for
improvement.
Due to the limited information available at the preliminary design stage, it is vital for
the process designer to select the suitable indicators for the considered aspects in process
synthesis and optimisation. For safety aspect, the earliest method which is known as
Prototype Index of Inherent Safety (PIIS) is proposed by Edward and Lawrence (1993). PIIS
takes into account of the main reactions and factors for example pressure, temperature, yield,
heat of reaction, inventory, flammability, toxicity and explosiveness. Heikkila (1999)
proposed Inherent Safety Index (ISI) which considers corrosions, side reactions, and
inventory for both inside and outside the battery limits, types of equipment and process
structure as well with factors considered in PIIS. Later on, a modified ISI has been
implemented by Palaniappan et al. (2002). A few supplementary indices such as worst
reaction index, overall chemical index and total chemical index are added to ISI to form
modified ISI.

Most of the methods used for evaluating occupational health aspect are meant for
existing plants. Johnson (2001) developed Occupational Health Hazard Index (OHHI) to
assess the occupational health aspect during the process development and design phases. The
OHHI is being improved by Hassim and Edwards (2006) and the improved index is called the
Process Route Healthiness Index (PRHI). The PRHI is a tool used to rank the process
alternatives based on the potential of activities and process conditions that may cause harm to
workers. However, the PRHI is not suitable to be used at the preliminary stage as it requires a
lot of process information that is unable to be provided at this stage. Hassim and Hurme
(2010) developed Health Quotient Index (HQI) to assess the occupational health aspect in the
preliminary design stage. The HQI method ranks the alternative processes based on their risks
value.
For environmental aspect, the Environmental Hazard Index (EHI) (Cave and Edwards,
1997) and Atmospheric Hazard Index (AHI) (Gunasekera and Edwards, 2003) are the earlier
methods used to assess the inherent environmental friendliness of the alternative chemical
process routes. Later on, Gunasekera and Edwards (2006) integrated EHI with AHI and
developed a new method which is known as Inherent Environmental Toxicity Hazard (IETH).
This method is used to estimate inherent environmental friendliness of chemical plant in all
media including air, soil and aquatic due to total loss of contaminants. Other than
aforementioned method, waste reduction (WAR) algorithm proposed by US-EPA can be used
to evaluate the environmental impact of a chemical process. Hilaly and Sikdar (1994) derived
the potential environmental index (PEI) from WAR algorithm so that the potential
environmental impact of the pollutant streams within the process can be identify and
calculated based on mass balance. Cabezas et al. (1999) then introduced the generalised
WAR algorithm with a PEI balance, which assigned environmental impact values to different
pollutants. Young and Cabezas (1999) extended the PEI balance to integrate the energy
consumption of chemical process into the environmental evaluation.
Apart from the abovementioned aspects, the economic potential of a chemical process
also plays an important role in process synthesis and design. Gross profit can be used to
assess the economic potential of a chemical process. It takes into account of the production
cost and product revenue of a process. Besides, return of investment (ROI) is a simple
measure of economic performance (Sinnott and Towler, 2009) of a process. It is measured as
the ratio of the net profit to the total investment. Edwards and Lawrence (1993) categorised
the cost of production (COP) into variable, non-capital and 20% ROI COP. 20% ROI COP is
defined as the total cost of production per unit mass taking into account of 20% of the total
fixed investment.
Integration of the considered aspects is necessary so that the relationship among them
can be assessed. Leontief (1936) and Leontief (1951) presented an input-output approach that
allows the relationship among the raw materials requirement, goods production and the
exchange of materials between different sectors being studied. This basic model has been
extended to incorporate the environmental burdens coupled with the utilisation of materials in
single-multi regional trade. The relationship between the production flows and environmental
3

burdens along supply chains can be assessed and evaluated by using input-output approach
(Albino and Kuhtz, 2004). Tan et al. (2008) utilised this model in life cycle assessment and
ecological footprint analysis. Besides, Aviso et al. (2011) integrated the input and output
approach with the optimisation model to deal with eco-industrial supply chain under water
footprint constraint. Recently, input-output model is utilised by Kasivisvanathan et al. (2013)
to describe the material and energy balance of the input and output flows for processes in a
system to study the optimal operational adjustment in multi-functional energy systems in
response to process inoperability. Kasivisvanathan et al. (2014) also applied this model in
their developed approach to study the robust optimisation for process synthesis and design of
multi-functional energy systems with uncertainties.
In order to consider the aspects simultaneously in process design and optimisation, a
multi-objective optimisation approach is required to be adapted. Based on Bellman and
Zadeh (1970), fuzzy approach can be used in decision-making to determine the favoured
alternatives by taking into account for uncertainties and inconsistencies in goals, objective
function and constraints (Bellman and Zadeh, 1970). Zimmermann (1978) has extended the
fuzzy approach to deal with linear and non-linear programming problems that containing
multiple objectives. In this approach, a continuous interdependence variable, which is also
known as the degree of satisfaction is introduced. Every fuzzy constraints will be satisfied
partially at least to . Thus, the multi-objectives function in the optimisation can be integrated
into a single objective function within the model. Fuzzy approach has been widely used to
deal with multi-objective problem. For instance, Liew et al. (2012) utilised a fuzzy multiobjective approach which considered economic performance, health, safety and
environmental impact for screening of sustainable chemical reaction pathways. Later on, Ng
et al. (2013) developed a multi-objective optimisation model for a palm oil processing
complex to obtain a sustainable integrated biorefinery.
To address the abovementioned issue, a systematic design framework, which
incorporates multi-objective optimisation, for chemical processes at the preliminary design
stage is developed. Economic, health, safety and environment aspects are considered
simultaneously in this proposed framework. Fuzzy multi-objective optimisation approach is
adapted in this work to aid the decision makers in selecting a chemical process design with
more sustainable process configuration. To illustrate the proposed framework, a case study on
the 1,4-butanediol production plant is presented in this work.

2. Problem Statement
With various chemical process alternative available for a particular chemical product,
the screening process can be a highly complex problem. The problem addressed in this work
is stated as follows: Process synthesis and design in the preliminary design stage is done for
each chemical process alternatives k. The input or output mass flow rate of all the stream i to
or from unit operation j and power consumption by unit operation j are expressed in the form
of an input-output matrix for each chemical process design alternative k. Four objective
functions (economic performance, health, safety and environment impact) are considered
simultaneous in process design and optimisation to determine a sustainable process design.
The economic performance of the chemical plant is evaluated by the gross profit. While
health, safety and environment impact are assessed by using HQI, ISI and WAR algorithm
respectively. All the indicators of the aspects will be integrated into the developed inputoutput model. The nature of the four aspects (economic performance, health, safety and
environmental) are conflicting and this has become a major problem in determining a more
sustainable process configuration. The objective of this work is to optimise the
abovementioned objective functions simultaneously via fuzzy optimisation approach.

3. Systematic Design Framework for Chemical Processes at Preliminary

Design Stage
Figure 1 shows the overview of the proposed framework. This framework consists of
five stages which are development of PFD and process simulation, development of inputoutput model from simulation, evaluation of four aspects (economic, health, safety and
environment) with linkage to input-output model, multi-objective optimisation via fuzzy
approach and re-simulation of the optimised chemical process design. The first stage of the
framework can be executed once the alternative process routes of the chemical product are
determined. The PFD of the alternative process routes are developed and process simulator
Aspen HYSYS is used to simulate all the chemical process design alternatives. In the second
stage, the required data, such as mass flow rate, power consumption, component distribution,
operating condition and reaction information is extracted from the process simulator. The
input-output model for each process design alternative is developed based on the material and
power consumption balance obtained from the process simulator. The data extracted in the
previous stage is evaluated based on economic, health, safety and environmental aspects in
the third stage. A mathematical multi-objective optimisation model is developed and solved
via fuzzy approach along with the decision makers preferences to determine a more
sustainable process configuration in the fourth stage. Lastly, the optimised process
configuration is re-simulated in the process simulator to study the deviation occurred between
the solution obtained from the developed mathematical model and the process simulator.

Development of PFD and process simulation

Development of input-output model from simulation

Evaluation of four aspects (Economic, Health, Safety
and Environment) with linkage to input-output
model
Multi-objective optimization via fuzzy approach
Re-simulation of the optimised chemical process
design
Figure 1. Overview of the systematic design framework for chemical processes at
preliminary design

3.1 Formulation of the multi-objective optimisation model

3.1.1 Material and power consumption balance
The material and power consumption balance for a chemical plant can be expressed in
the form of an input-output matrix as shown in Equation (1):
    ,



(1)

where aij represents the matrix of input or output mass flow rate of stream i to or from unit
operation j, xj,k represents the capacity or size of the unit operation j in process k and yi,k is the
net output of stream i in process k. The lower and upper limit of the capacity of the unit
operation j in process k is presented in Equation (2):

(2)

It is assumed that this model works linearly within the range from
= 0.5 to
= 1.5. A
positive value of yi,k indicates that it is an output stream which is either product or effluent
stream whereas a negative value indicates that it is an input stream and a value of zero
denotes that it is an intermediate stream. The lower and upper limit of the product output is
given as:

   

(3)

The lower and upper limit of the product output is set based on the acceptable range of
fluctuation given by the decision-maker.
6

3.1.2 Economic performance (EP)

In this work, gross profit is used to determine the economic performance of the
process k. The gross profit of the process k can be calculated using Equation (4):




 

(4)

and
are the mass flow rate of the products and raw materials in process k
where

and 
are the product revenue and cost of raw materials in process k
respectively, 

respectively. Due to the

obtained from the input-output model is in negative value, a

negative sign is assigned to

in equation (4) to make it into positive value. The annual
operating hour of chemical plant is assumed as 8000 hrs.

3.1.3 Health impact

The HQI is used to evaluate the health impact of a chemical process plant in the
preliminary design stage. The calculation of the HQI is mainly consists of four sections
which are estimation of fugitive emissions, air volumetric flow rate, airborne chemical
concentration and HQI formulation. In the first section, fugitive emission of each of the
chemical components in process k, can be calculated using Equation (5):
   



(5)

where , waij and FEij are the capacity of the unit operations j, weight composition of the
chemical component a and the pre-calculated fugitive emission rates in stream i to or from
unit operation j respectively. The pre-calculated fugitive emission rates for the unit operation
stream can be obtained from Hassim et al. (2010). The pre-calculated fugitive emission rates
for the unit operation stream are affected by the change in plant capacity. Thus, a factor of
the process plant capacity with a power of 0.5 is incorporated in the equation (5). In the
second section, the air volumetric flow rate is determined by the following equations from
equation (6)-(9). The total process floor area, At,k can be determined by summing up the floor
area of all the unit operations in the process k:
   ,

(6)

where Aj,k is the floor area of unit operations j in process k and it can be referred to the precalculated floor area of the standard unit operations presented in Hassim et al. (2010). By
assuming a square plot for the plant, the side length of the process plant k, sk is given as:

 

(7)

The cross-sectional area of the process plant, Ac,k is calculated using Equation (8):


(8)

where h is the average height of the main unit operations in the plant and is assumed to be
below 7m (Mecklenburgh, 1985).
Lastly, the air volumetric flow rate, Qk can be determined by using wind speed, v multiplies
with the cross-sectional area of the process plant, Ac,k and is written as:
(9)

 

Typical wind speed of 4 m/s is used if the local average wind speed is not available (Baldwin
and Maynard, 1998). In the third section, the average concentration of the chemical
components in the air at the downwind edge of the plot area, Ca,k is determined using
Equation (10):


(10)

In the last section, HQI of each chemical components is calculated using Equation (11):

(11)

where  is the threshold limit of the chemical component a. The risk of the chemical
component is considered acceptable when its HQI is less than one which indicates that the
receptors are exposed to concentration below the threshold limit of the chemical component.
The total HQI of a process is determined by summing up all the HQI of each chemical
components in the process.
 ,

(12)

3.1.4 Safety impact

The safety impact of a chemical plant is assessed by using ISI. The calculations of the
ISI are made on the basis of the worst situation. A low value of ISI represents an inherently
safer process. The maximum value of ISI is 100 which indicates an extremely unsafe process
(Shadiya, 2011). The total Inherent Safety Index, ITI composed of Chemical Inherent Safety
Index, ICI and Process Inherent Safety Index, IPI as shown in Equation (13):


(13)

The sub-index for the Chemical Inherent Safety Index, ICI is expressed as:
       

(14)

where  ,  , ,  ,  ,  and  are

the sub-index for the factor of the heat of main reaction, heat of side reaction, chemical
interaction, flammability, explosiveness, toxic exposure and corrosiveness of the chemical
components present in the process respectively. The sub-index for the Process Inherent
Safety Index, IPI is given as:
   

(15)
8

where ,  ,  ,  and  are the sub-index for the factor of

inventory, process temperature, process pressure, equipment safety and safe process structure
respectively. All the sub-index are pre-calculated with the aid of Microsoft Excel and score is
assigned to each of the sub-index based on the information given in Table 7 to Table 17 as
shown in appendices except sub-index for inventory. Sub-index for inventory is influenced

by the total output of the process plant,

which is calculated using Equation (16):

(16)

where
is the mass flow rate of the output stream for both product and effluent stream.
Integer variable, Ir is used to assign the score for the inventory sub-index. The score for all
different range of amount of inventory is formulated as:

   
    

(17)

 

(18)

where  and  are the lower and upper bounds of the amount of inventory at range R and
 is the score given for the output within range R. Equation (17) is adapted from El-Halwagi
(2006).
3.1.5 Environmental impact (EI)
The widely used WAR algorithm proposed by US-EPA is selected as the
measurement of sustainability in this work. The total environmental impact generated by the

chemical process, can be expressed as the following equation:

(19)

where and are the input and output rates of impact in the chemical process k,

is the impact of power consumption. The value of , and can be determined

via equation 20 to 22 respectively:



(20)



(21)


   ,

   ,
 

   ,

(22)

where is the power consumption of the chemical process plant,  and  are the
score of the potential environmental impact of chemical component a and electricity
respectively. The score of  and  can be determined via the Equation (23) and (24)
respectively:
  ,

(23)

  ,

(24)

where is the weighting factor of the impact at category l,  and  are the
potential environmental impact score of chemical component a and electricity at each of the
category l respectively. The score of all PEI of chemical components and electricity at each
category can be obtained from the WAR algorithm software. There are eight categories
presented in PEI which are human toxicity potential by exposure, both dermal and inhalation
(HTPE), human toxicity potential by ingestion (HTPI), aquatic toxicity potential (ATP),
terrestrial toxicity potential (TTP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), global warming
potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP) and photochemical oxidation potential (PCOP).
3.1.6 Fuzzy optimisation
Fuzzy optimisation is used to determine the favoured alternatives in solving the objective
function and constraints simultaneously. The optimisation objective of is maximised subject
to the predefined upper and lower bounds.
a) Selection of the sustainable process design
When two or more alternatives process design are involved in the selection of a more
sustainable process design, fuzzy approach is used to aid the selection and the process design
with the highest degree of satisfaction, will be selected after considering the four aspects
(EP, HQI ISI and EI) simultaneously. In order to select a more sustainable process design,
fuzzy optimisation model is expressed as:
= 

(25)
(26)

where integer variable, Ir is used to indicate the existence (or absence) of the of the process
k and subscript r is the number of integers used. Equation (25) and (26) will constraint the
Lingo program to select the with a higher value. Each flexible target (EP, HQI, ISI and EI)
is predefined as fuzzy goals which are given by a linear membership function bounded by the
upper ( ,  ,  and  ) and lower limits ( ,  ,  and  ) as illustrated in
Figure 2. The of each processes k is determined using Equation (27)-(30):




(27)


 


(28)


 


(29)





(30)

where superscript L and U represent lower and upper limit of the aspects respectively. The
lower and upper limit of the aspects are set based on the all the processes k involved. The

10

selected process design will be optimised again to obtain a more sustainable process
configuration.

Unacceptable
1

Full
Partial
Satisfaction Satisfaction Unacceptable

Partial
Full Satisfaction
Satisfaction

0
EP

EP EPU

EP

0
L

HQI

(a)

Full
Partial
Satisfaction Satisfaction Unacceptable
1

0
L

ISI

ISI

ISI

ISI

(c)

HQI

(b)

HQI

HQI

Full
Partial
Satisfaction Satisfaction Unacceptable

EI

EI

EI

EI

(d)

Figure 2. Fuzzy degree of satisfaction () of the inequalities: (a) economic performance

(EP); (b) health impact (HQI); (c) safety impact (ISI); (d) environmental impact (EI)
b) Simultaneous operation of the processes
This scenario is applied when two or more process designs are allowed to be operated
simultaneously to meet the required output of the chemical product. The EP, EI, ISI and HQI
of each processes k are added together respectively as shown in Equation (31)-(34):


(31)

(32)

(33)

(34)

where TEP, TEI, TISI and THQI are the total economic performance, environmental impact,
inherent safety index and health quotient index of all the processes k. The of this process
configuration is determined using Equation (35)-(38):
11










(35)



(36)

(37)





(38)

where the lower and upper limit of the aspects are set based on the sum of the each aspects of
the processes k involved. Dealing with this scenario, some modification is needed for
equation (1), (5) and (6). The modified equation (1), (5) and (6) are shown in Equation (39)(41) respectively:

    

    

   

,  

(39)

, 

(40)

, 

(41)

where f is the number of the process designs involved in the simultaneous operation. The
total output of each process design k is scaled down by the factor, f since more than one plant
is considered to operate simultaneously to meet the required product output. The precalculated fugitive emission rates for the unit operation streams and the floor area of the unit
operations are needed to be scaled down as well since the capacity of the plants is scaled
down by a factor of f.

4. Case Study
In order to illustrate the proposed framework for chemical processes at preliminary
design stage, a case study on the 1,4-butanediol production plant is presented. 1,4-butanediol
is a colourless and non-corrosive solution which is widely used as a solvent in the industry to
manufacture elastic fibres, technical plastics and polyurethanes (Haas et al, 2005). The
physical properties of 1,4-butanediol are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Physical properties of 1,4-butanediol
Physical property
Molar mass (gmol-1)
Density at 20 C (g/cm3)
Melting point (C)
Boiling point (C)

Value
90.12
1.0171
20.1
235

12