Introduction to Altsep: Sustainable Separation Processes Roadmap Review

Creating a sustainable future requires sustainable manufacturing processes. This is especially true for the separation processes central to chemical manufacturing. Conventional fluid separations account for over a third of energy use and over half of the capital investment of chemical plants. To pave the way toward transforming the energy efficiency of fluid separations, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) has partnered with AIChE to coordinate the development of a NIST-sponsored innovation roadmap. Based on a series of workshops, the draft AltSep roadmap has identified a number of research, development, and demonstration initiatives. These initiatives are critical for establishing a molecular property-based system for the industrial selection, simulation, and design of energy-efficient separation processes and accelerating the industrial application of such alternative separation processes.

A series of speakers will present on the following topics:

• Background and need for the roadmap,
• System to synthesize and design alternative separation processes, and
• Challenges to overcome barriers to adoption of sustainable separation solutions.

Following these presentations, feedback will be solicited from the audience to improve the quality of the roadmap findings.