Multi-criteria decision analysis for the selection of sustainable chemical process routes during early design stages

• A methodology to assess sustainability of chemical process routes is proposed.
• The methodology provides a metric to discern different chemical process routes.
• Multi-criteria methods are used to integrate sustainability indicators.
• The methodology is explained by the selection of a route to produce ethyl acetate.

Decision-making for sustainable design requires the evaluation of different options considering all sustainability dimensions simultaneously: economic, environmental and social. Each dimension has a specific relative importance, which depends on the process that is being assessed. The determination of the relative importance is not a simple task, principally, during early design stages when detailed information about the process is scarce, and when core decisions affecting the entire design are made. An example of this kind of decisions during early design stages is the selection of the chemical process route, which, once defined, provides the guidelines for the process design. The present study proposes a multi-criteria analysis based methodology to evaluate different chemical process route options under sustainability criteria and to guide the selection among them. The methodology uses normalized indicators to assess each sustainability dimension, and a multi-criteria analysis method (MCDA) to calculate the weights and influences between dimensions. Indicators, dimension weights and influences are integrated into the Sustainable Cumulative Index (SCI) that can be used to compare chemical process route options in sustainability terms and to support their selection. The proposed methodology is illustrated through the assessment and selection of a chemical process route to produce ethyl acetate.

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