PEC12-25 CAPEC-PROCESS Industrial Consortium ... - DTU Orbit

4.4.2 SustainPro
SustainPro is an EXCEL based software, which provides options for retrofit analysis and
performance analysis of a given process. A new version is now available with more
automated steps. The objective is to perform sustainable process design through SustainPro.
As highlighted in Fig 4.5b, the inputs to SustainPro are the mass and the energy balance
data that can be collected either from the plant or from process simulations. To perform the
retrofit analysis, SustainPro also requires as input, several cost related data (the prices for
utilities, the prices for chemicals, etc.). SustainPro is able to read the mass and the energy
balance from an EXCEL file generated by a commercial simulator. The EXCEL interface
guides the user through the steps of the work-flow (solution steps). After applying all the
steps SustainPro gives as output for the retrofit analysis, a new design alternative
suggestion for improving the process being investigated. When the software is used for
performance analysis, the output provides the calculated values of the sustainability metrics
and the safety indices. As it can be seen from Fig 4.5b, the two options can be combined,
which means that they complement each other. After applying the retrofit analysis, the
performance analysis is performed and compared with the base case design.
Figure 4.5b: Overview of the main features of SustainPro
4.4.3 Virtual Product-Process Design Lab
The idea behind the virtual product-process design lab is the following: instead of doing the
experiments needed to search for a product and its process to manufacture it, the
engineer/scientist performs virtual experiments, through the vPPD-lab software. The
software therefore contains a large knowledge base of data (of chemicals, of solvents, of
plants, of microcapsule devices, etc.); a large collection of models (models for property
prediction, models for controlled release, models for mixing, etc.); of design algorithms
(methods for formulation design, methods for molecule design, methods for polymer
design, methods for process flowsheet synthesis, etc); other tools (property prediction
software; model generation software; equipment design software; design of experiments
software, etc.). All of the above are organized through a framework for efficient
management of the complexity. Figure 4.4c gives an overview of the main features of the
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