Energy and CO2 management for chemical and related industries: issues, opportunities and challenges

This paper gives a brief review of energy and CO₂ emissions related topics resulting from the chemical and related industries. The main issues, challenges and opportunities are highlighted together with perspectives of process alternatives for more efficient energy consumption and CO₂ emission management. Analysis of the data indicate that not all available energy resources are being utilized efficiently, while the energy resources causing the largest emissions of CO₂ are being used in the largest amounts. Also, the chemical and related industries are among the largest consumers of energy, indicating that solutions for reduction of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in these industries need to be investigated. Information on promising alternatives for reduction of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are collected and a selection of them are evaluated. Also, two specific case studies involving energy intensive separation operations replaced by recently developed technologies that may achieve significant reductions in energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and total annualized costs are presented. Through these examples issues of energy need versus CO₂ neutral design, sustainable conversion, retrofit design, and process intensification for chemical and related industries are highlighted.