Towards the sustainable production of methyl methacrylate: A comparative analysis of industrial chemical production processes using life cycle assessment methodology

Adeoye, Aduraseyi Adedibu (2022) Towards the sustainable production of methyl methacrylate: A comparative analysis of industrial chemical production processes using life cycle assessment methodology. [Laurea magistrale], Università di Bologna, Corso di Studio in Low carbon technologies and sustainable chemistry [LM-DM270], Documento ad accesso riservato.
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Abstract

Increasing environmental awareness has been a significant driving force for innovations and process improvements in different sectors and the field of chemistry is not an outlier. Innovating around industrial chemical processes in line with current environmental responsibilities is however no mean feat. One of such hard to overhaul process is the production of methyl methacrylate (MMA) commonly produced via the acetone cyanohydrin (ACH) process developed back in the 1930s. Different alternatives to the ACH process have emerged over the years and the Alpha Lucite process has been particularly promising with a combined plant capacity of 370,000 metric tonnes in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. This study applied Life Cycle Assessment methodology to conduct a comparative analysis between the ACH and Lucite processes with the aim of ascertaining the effect of applying principles of green chemistry as a process improvement tool on overall environmental impacts. A further comparison was made between the Lucite process and a lab-scale process that is further improvement on the former, also based on green chemistry principles. Results showed that the Lucite process has higher impacts on resource scarcity and ecosystem health whereas the ACH process has higher impacts on human health. On the other hand, compared to the Lucite process the lab-scale process has higher impacts in both the ecosystem and human health categories with lower impacts only in the resource scarcity category. It was observed that the benefits of process improvements with green chemistry principles might not be apparent in some categories due to some limitations of the methodology. Process contribution analysis was also performed and it revealed that the contribution of energy is significant, therefore a sensitivity analysis with different energy scenarios was performed. An uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo analysis was also performed to validate the consistency of the results in each of the comparisons.

Abstract
Tipologia del documento
Tesi di laurea (Laurea magistrale)
Autore della tesi
Adeoye, Aduraseyi Adedibu
Relatore della tesi
Correlatore della tesi
Scuola
Corso di studio
Ordinamento Cds
DM270
Parole chiave
methyl methacrylate poly(methyl methacrylate) plexiglass life cycle assessment LCA green chemistry
Data di discussione della Tesi
19 Ottobre 2022
URI

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