The aim of this study is to introduce and showcase the applicability of the ‘Green-by-Design method’, a tool created by the cooperative Cosun that integrates different indicators involving economic, environmental, inherent safety and health aspects for comparative analysis at an early design stage. Two case studies are presented to exemplify the evaluation principles and steps considered along the ‘Green-by-Design method’: ethylene glycol production and fava bean protein isolate extraction. The results indicate that the ‘Green-by-Design method’ provides a comprehensive comparison of different design concepts, by combining various indicators into a single score, enabling sustainability to be an integral aspect in the decision-making during an early design phase.@en

"Product and process design - driving sustainable innovation" is the 2nd edition of a comprehensive textbook for product and process design courses at BSc, MSc, EngD, and PhD level. It covers both heuristics based design methods as well as systems engineering approaches. It contains specific methods to co-design products and processes, so that both designs are better than when these designs are made separately. This integrated combination makes the book unique. For making designs that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations specific methods are provided for the People, Planet, and Prosperity dimensions. This second edition of the book includes examples and exercises for each design method, which makes it very suitable for teaching purposes. The book is furthermore of interest to industrial process and product developers for many industry branches as it provides methods for design, modelling, and experimental validation for each innovation stage. It is also very useful for R&D managers as it provides guidelines for essential activities in each innovation stage (discovery, concept, feasibility, development, detailed engineering), leading to successful implementations of new processes and new products. Includes a major revision of all chapters with more examples and exercises and interactive options via website for quizzes. Provides training in process technology, sustainability, process design, scale-up and intensification.

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The use of refrigerants has been continuously increasing in thermal control systems employed in residential premises, offices, storage, process operations and many more. Widely used refrigerants such as R-410A have become a target for regulations to prohibit their use because of environmental issues. R-410A is a blend of R-32 (Difluoromethane) and R-125 (Pentafluoroethane). Because of high global warming potential (GWP) of R-125, it has become a target for removal from R-410A and reuse. An additional issue is the recovery of the refrigerant from current and decommissioned thermal control units. This paper reports the results of an investigation related to the separation of refrigeration blend compounds, recycle and reuse of the refrigerant mixture compounds and alternative blend compositions, with emphasis on environmental, health and physical hazards as well as optimal refrigeration cycle operation. Two alternatives for feasibility of operating a continuous separation-recycling process are studied.

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An educational workshop for developing Process Systems Engineering (PSE) courses will be held during ESCAPE-33, following the model workshop that was run during the CAPE Forum 2022 held at the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. This 3-hour workshop distributes the participants into four teams working together to develop the outline of a course on a novel application area in PSE motivated by a selected plenary or keynote talk at the conference, with each team led by authors of this contribution. This paper provides an overview of the approach used in the workshop for the effective development of a PSE course.

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Product and Process Design: Driving Innovation is a comprehensive textbook for students and industrial professionals. It treats the combined design of innovative products and their innovative manufacturing processes, providing specific methods for BSc, MSc, PDEng and PhD courses. Students, industrial innovators and managers are guided through all design steps in all innovation stages (discovery, concept, feasibility, development, detailed engineering, and implementation) to successfully obtain novel products and their novel processes. The authors’ decades of innovation experience in industry, as well as in teaching BSc, MSc, and post-academic product and process design courses, thereby including the latest design publications, culminate in this book. Provides training in process technology, sustainability, process design, scale-up and intensification. Readers will benefit from the authors' industrial experience in research, development, design, start-up, operation and de-bottlenecking.@en

The two-year post-MSc technological design traineeships organized by the Dutch Universities of Technology, and leading to the Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) degree, are still going strong after 28 years of existence. In 1986 the Dutch government and the Dutch industry - both aiming to increase the level of design competencies and personal and business skills of selected top-level MSc graduates in selected technical areas - jointly initiated these traineeships. The technical content of these traineeships, and the one-year design thesis projects from industry have been continuously adjusted to the industry’s needs and the universities’ research, design and education capabilities. Currently 20 PDEng programmes spread over many technical disciplines (automotive, (bio)chemical, food, energy, logistics, robotics, civil engineering industries) and where industry is actively pursuing innovation, are active. Six of these programmes were started in the last four years and cooperation with new industrial partners was initiated. The design theses (almost without exception executed under confidentiality agreement between the partners) lead to new innovation leads and trade secrets or patents. The vast majority of the PDEng graduates recruited from all over the globe, find employment at one of these innovative companies in the Netherlands, and populate the companies’ technical career track for a very extended period of time.@en

Hydrogen, if produced from clean and abundant sources, has the potential for solving the concerns on energy supply security, climate change and local air pollution. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting is a promising technology under development for the production of hydrogen from water by using sunlight. This design project aims to investigate the practical implementation of this innovative technology by developing aninitial conceptual design of a modular PEC water-splitting device that could be on the market by 2020.
An analysis of the state-of-the-art of the so-called artificial leaf technology was used to identify the main design challenges: (a) the need of finding efficient, durable, low-cost, earth-abundant semiconductors and catalysts, (b) the separation of the evolved gases in a reliable way to ensure the safety of the device, (c) the optimization of the components size and relative positioning to minimize internal losses and enhance light absorption, and (d) the optimum operating conditions.
To facilitate the design process of a device that could overcome the identified challenges, a step-wise methodology was applied. In each level, various design alternatives were investigated and evaluated according to technical, economical, safety and sustainability criteria. A device consisting of one photoelectrode and a counter metal electrode facing each other was selected, since this configuration offers low Ohmic losses.
Moreover, the photoelectrode is illuminated from the back to minimize the light losses. Low cost and earthabundant materials were selected for the main components: (i) multifunction a-Silicon for the photoelectrode, (ii) Nickel Molybdenum protection layer for the photoelectrode and (iii) Nickel counter electrode. For these materials to be stable and efficient, the device should operate under alkaline conditions. Moreover, to ensure the separation of the gases, an anion exchange membrane is placed in between the electrodes. Nevertheless, the design offer flexibility to implement material developments.
The economic feasibility of a hydrogen production plant utilising the designed device has been investigated, leading to potential hydrogen cost below 6 $/kg. This device could be manufactured with commercially available components and manufacturing process, with an estimated cost of ~70 $/m2. Moreover, a sustainability life cycle assessment (LCA) showed the potential environmental benefits of this technology,
with an energy payback time lower than 2 years, and savings of 2.5 ton CO2 eq. emissions per m2 of device during its full lifetime (15 years). It was concluded that the developed conceptual design could succeed in the market, providing a safe and environmental friendly process for hydrogen production.
Nevertheless, some practical issues were identified that need to be resolved before this PEC technology is marketable, and therefore it is recommended that laboratory research focuses on the further development of (a) protection layers to improve the stability of the semiconductor photoelectrodes and (b) anion exchange membranes to minimize the gas crossover and ensure the safety of the device. With respect to engineering development of the device it is recommended to initiate a detailed design project that focuses on the optimization of the operating conditions and the flow management to minimize the internal losses and the gas crossover.@en