METHODOLOGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT OF INDUSTRIAL NONROUTINE RELEASES

While increasing social concern and strict legislation have resulted i n expanding the conventional design objectives of profitability to inc lude environmental impact and operability aspects, traditional practic es regarding environmental risk assessment (ERA) have mainly focused o n providing qualitative guidelines to evaluate the likelihood and cons equence of undesired events to the environment. By linking process rel iability considerations to environmental impact analysis within a proc ess optimization framework, this work presents a systematic method for the quantification and at source minimization of combined adverse env ironmental effects of routine (i.e., waste water effluent streams) and nonroutine releases (i.e., leaks, emissions from equipment breakdown) . Trade-offs are explored regarding cost and routine/nonroutine enviro nmental impact objectives, while opportunities for effective maintenan ce strategies are identified. The steps of the theoretical analysis an d the potential of the proposed methodology are illustrated with two e xample problems, a simplified chemical reaction-separation scheme and a methane chlorination process.