Green Technology & Sustainable Development

(3160514)

Jilesh M. Pandya
Assistant Professor,
Chemical Engineering Department,
V. V. P. Engineering College, Rajkot.
 :: Content ::
1 Principles of Green Technology and Green Engineering: 07
To learn to modify the processes and products to make them green safe
and economically acceptable to the society, Concepts of green chemistry
and Process intensification.
2 Green Synthesis and Catalysis: 07
Green oxidation and photochemical reactions, Microwave and Ultrasound
assisted reactions, Synthesis of Green Reagents, Green solvents, Green
nanotechnology and Ionic liquids.
3 Green Industrial Processes: 07
Pollution statistics from various industries like polymer, textile,
pharmaceutical, dyes, pesticides and wastewater treatment. A greener
approach towards all these industries.
4 Meaning of Sustainable Development: 07
Understand the Sustainable Development, three principal dimensions: the
ecological, the economic and the social dimension, including
intergenerational justice; use a systems perspective, to describe
sustainability challenges and possibilities for major technical systems and
for their transformation to meet sustainability requirements.
5 Concepts of Cleaner Technologies: 10
Cleaner Production (CP), Definition, methodology, Role of CP in
Achieving Sustainability, Benefits, Role of Industry, Government
and Institutions, Environmental Management, Hierarchy,
Relation of CP and EMS. CP case studies: Ammonical nitrogen
recovery from wastewater, Fluoride removal from wastewater,
Reuse of water from sewage treatment plant, Gas quenching
process: replacement of oil with nitrogen and Reduction of
hydrogen cyanide from process stack. Reuse of liquid industrial
waste from several industries.
6 Challenges and Practical Implementation: 07
Responsibilities and potentials of companies for action. Green
Productivity and emerging technologies. Implementation of the
practical applications of Green emerging technologies and
sustainable development. Case studies in Green Technology.
Green laws compliance.
 Green Productivity and Emerging Technology
 The manufacturing sector is key to promoting and diffusing technological
change, which in turn is a crucial driver of competitiveness and economic
growth.
 Industrial development therefore has great potential to achieve a number
of social objectives including high rates of employment, poverty
eradication, gender equality, labour standards and better access to
education and healthcare.
 The task of creating a virtuous cycle of environmentally sustainable and
long-term economic growth to eradicate poverty require the
implementation of emerging green technologies that are capable of
increasing productivity and growth.
 These technologies should be at the core of any industrial upgrading effort.
 They allow for an expansion of the technological capabilities of the
manufacturing sector while realizing cleaner production, efficient resource
management and reductions in waste and pollution.
 The transformation process towards Emerging Green Technologies (EGTs)
within the scope of sustainable production and consumption patterns
requires changes at four levels:
1. Technology level: acquisition of technical skills to include EGTs as part of
the production processes; this will require actors in MICs to familiarize
themselves with successful concepts for the introduction of EGTs as well
as with the competitive advantages technologies provide for
companies.
2. System perspective: integration of heterogeneous areas of knowledge
from the different disciplines involved in the introduction of EGTs; this will
require a focus on system-related aspects relevant for the introduction of
EGTs.
3. Paradigm shift: development of processes accompanying the
sustainable transformation of MICs; this will require wider societal debates
to make a range of actors aware of the substantial benefits of EGTs.
4. System knowledge level: promotion of learning processes that are
necessary at all levels to induce transformative innovations; this will
require strong involvement of actors in the field of education and
training.
 Green Productivity (GP) is a strategy for enhancing productivity and
environmental performance for overall socio-economic development.

 It is the application of GP methodology comprising the appropriate

techniques, technologies and management system to produce
environmentally compatible goods and services.

 As GP focuses on productivity improvement and environmental protection,

the central element of the GP methodology is the examination and re-
evaluation of both production processes and products to reduce their
environmental impacts and highlight ways to improve productivity and
product quality. Implementation of these options leads on to another cycle
of review and so promotes continuous improvement.

 GP techniques are used to bring about the changes that will result in better
environmental performance and improved productivity They range from
simple housekeeping techniques to designing "green" products. Some of
the techniques used in GP include, good housekeeping, design change,
process modification, waste and water management, pollution prevention
etc.
 It is the combined application of appropriate productivity and environmental
management tools, techniques and technologies that reduce the environmental
impact of an organization's activities, products and services while enhancing
profitability and competitive advantage.
 Green productivity is a dynamic strategy to harmonize economic growth and
environmental protection for sustainable development.
 It offers small and medium businesses a way to achieve a competitive advantage
by doing better with less.
 It is thus a practical strategy to increase productivity and protect the environment
simultaneously.
 Traditional methods of pollution control were not cost-effective.
 The concept of green productivity assures profitability and resource productivity.
 Green productivity uses a set of management tools, techniques and technologies
to encourage innovation and a continuous cycle of productivity gains.
 GP aims to ensure environmental protection while making business profitable. GP
recognizes that the environment and development are two sides of the same
coin.
 For any development strategy to be sustainable, it needs to have a focus on
quality, profitability, and the environment, referred to as the triple focus of GP.
Green Emerging Technology & Sustainable Development
The areas proposed for special focus under the green technology principles
are the following.
They were selected with emphasis on economic considerations and for their
future contribution to sustainable development.
1. Use of alternative feed stocks. There are already many new
developments in this field, but the emphasis on renewable raw materials
and a shift from fossil fuels is very desirable for sustainability. The starting
materials for the chemical industry must be renewable and less toxic for
workers and the environment.
2. Use of less hazardous reagents. There are now enough data for the
toxicological and for the long term eco-toxicological properties of most
of the high volume chemicals used for industry. Chemists and
technologists must divert their efforts to use less dangerous raw materials
and reagents for the synthetic routes of the production of chemical
products. But if there are major obstacles they must choose less toxic
substances and change their technologies accordingly, for example
using catalysts and new synthetic techniques.
3. Use of natural processes, like biocatalytic techniques. New
biosynthetic methods were developed in the last decades which
are more selective, use less energy, lower temperatures, higher
yields and demand raw materials which are less toxic. Green
technology research in the last decades replaced many old
methods and introduced some innovative catalytic methods with
high yields and less waste.
4. Use of alternative solvents: Many solvents, especially
polychlorinated and aromatic solvents, were used for decades for
extraction techniques in industry. Some of these solvents (e.g.
carbon tetrachloride) were banned and some others are restricted.
Industry uses now less toxic solvents and their waste can be recycled
or decomposed at high temperatures. The chemical industry
invested, under the Green 30 Chemistry principles, in new solvents
which are less toxic to workers and can disintegrate more easily
under environmental conditions.
5. Design of safer chemicals and products. Many new developments in
methodology and toxicological tests improved our understanding of the toxicity
and their mechanisms of new chemicals and products. The methodology of
Quantitative structure-activity relationships, QSARs can be used to speed up the
estimation of toxicity, carcinogenicity or other toxicological property of a new
substance.

6. Developing alternative reaction conditions. In recent years there are many

more alternative or “greener” reaction techniques improving substantially the
product yield, saving energy and minimize waste. Photochemical reactions,
microwave and ultrasound assisted organic synthetic techniques, reactions using
water as solvent, catalytic reactions, etc are some of the new techniques in
synthesizing chemicals.
7. Minimizing energy consumption. This is a very important goal considering the
energy savings and the climatic change which has become a global
environmental problem. The chemical industry has invested enough resources to
reduce energy demands with innovations and changes in synthetic reactions
(lower temperatures, reducing steps). Green Chemistry is very interested to
contribute through research to minimize energy consumption in every step of the
industrial process
 Green Emerging Technology & Sustainable Development
 Green Law Compliance means conforming to environmental laws, regulations, standards and
other requirements such as site permits to operate. In recent years, environmental concerns have
led to a significant increase in the number and scope of compliance imperatives across all
global regulatory environments. Being closely related, environmental concerns and compliance
activities are increasingly being aligned with corporate performance goal and being integrated
to some extent to avoid conflicts, wasteful overlaps, and gaps.
 Compliance with the above requirements and obligations, requires meeting certain conditions.
Typically, these include:
 Managing monitoring programmes or schedules, ensuring that the monitoring required in the
permit has been done, at the correct locations, for the correct parameters, and at the correct
frequency
 Pre-processing, performing calculations and validating the data for compliance with any alert or
reporting levels
 Generating routine compliance reports for authorities.

 The management of the above can be complex and time-consuming, leading to an increasing
uptake of software systems designed to manage environmental compliance. These are often
referred to as 'Environmental Data Management Systems' (EDMS). Criteria must be considered
when selecting environmental compliance software: proven capability, high performance,
transparent, traceable data handling, a robust calculation engine, advanced factor handling,
simple integration, automated workflows and QA, and flexible reporting and data extraction.
 In order to ensure that the projects such as power plants, mines and oil and gas
exploration while expanding their scope of business do not fail to comply with the
requisite environment standards as prescribed under the law, the Government is
working to subject such ventures to the scanner of the independent auditors
dedicated in this regard. The Government has proposed that the approved
auditors will conduct randomised, third-party compliance monitoring of
environment clearance conditions. The institutions empanelled by the
Government shall be ensuring adherence to the environmental guidelines in
respect of specific industries taking up tasks which may impact the environment.
 The compliance monitoring is planned to be done inter-alia against the baseline
information available in the Environmental Impact Assessment report,
Environmental Management Plan appraised by the Environmental Audit
Committee, terms and conditions of the environmental clearance as well as other
provisions as may be specified by the Ministry from time to time.
 The Government is in the process of reinforcing the provisions of environmental
impact assessment with the objective to minimize adverse impacts on the
surrounding environment attributable to the new undertakings of the corporates
by ensuring a regulatory check on compliance of the same.
Chemical Engineering Department,
V. V. P. Engineering College, Rajkot