Impact of technological development, market and environmental regulations on the past and future performance of chemical processes

This work presents a systematic approach to introduce the evolution of technology, market and environmental regulations into process design, more specifically into the generation of retrofit alternatives. For this purpose the information on development of technology, economic and environmental performances is obtained. Firstly, the evolution of the technology for the production of a chemical and its precursors is analyzed. Afterwards, the development of the market situation regarding prices and demand together with the progress of the environmental regulations is studied. This allows for the assessment of the economic and environmental performance of the process over time. Finally, the economic and environmental assessment is used for the identification of process alternatives that can further improve the process performance in the future. This methodology is demonstrated using the production of hydrogen cyanide as a case study.