INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR PHOSPHORUS-CONTAINING COMPOUNDS
Sustainable process-product development & green chemistry
Environmental Engineering & Management (T1-3P)
Keywords: information system, information technologies, databases, phosphorus, phosphorus-containing compounds, mathematical modeling
According to the prediction of the UN Food Organisation, consumption of mineral fertilisers in the world will be 310 Mt, including phosphorus-containing products – 77 Mt. Phosphorus-containing fertilisers are produced on the basis of phosphoric acid. Over 2,000,000 t of phosphoric acid (in P2O5) are produced only in Europe. Serious pollution of surface and subterranean waters, atmosphere, soil, damage to human health and green plantations damages are registered for discharged wastes of phosphorus-containing products. In Russian Federation alone, the annual discharge of these wastes in environment is:
• into atmosphere 80,000 t
• shedding into the water – 70 Mm3
• storage of solid wastes – 16 Mt
Sustainable development of the society requires the phosphorus industry to significantly boost its environmental performance which needs radical technological improvements. Those requirements are comprehensively addressed in EC supported FP6 INCO ECOPHOS Project. The project focuses on new technologies for (a) the production of useful phosphorous salts (fodder, food and pharmaceutical phosphates), phosphorous acid and phosphates in a cost efficient and ecologically sustainable way, (b) the improvement of existing methods in the phosphoric acid production for the drastic minimisation of waste, (c) the utilisation and processing of industrial solid waste from the production of phosphoric acid and (d) the production of a new generation of phosphoric fertilizers.
One of the key aspects of the work is the development of an integrated toolbox for production of the wide class of phosphorus-containing products with information and data on waste minimising processes, safety, resource- and energy saving, exchange of information about advanced technologies of these chemical productions. The advanced processes developed during the work cover (i) sodium phosphite production, (ii) phosphorous acid production, (iii) dibasic lead phosphite production, (iv) upgraded dihydrate method for phosphoric acid production, (v) dihydrate-semihydrate method, semihydrate method and (vi) ortho-phosphoric acid purification, and they will constitute the core of the open-type advanced technologies toolbox. The toolbox is based on mathematical models of those processes which are incorporated into mathematical model block of the toolbox. Also these toolbox models will be used for development of training systems.
The toolbox also contains a number of technologies (including process flowsheets and relevant data) for waste minimisation by utilisation such as: (i) phosphogypsum utilisation, (ii) cadmium containing phosphate ores processing and production of fodder, (iii) production of fodder, food and pharmaceutical phosphates and (iv) production of prolonged and aqua-accumulating fertilizers
Databases within the integrated toolbox include:
• Advanced technologies of phosphorus-containing products manufacturing;
• Phosphogypsum disposal and its impact on the environment;
• Phosphogypsum processing technologies;
• Producers of phosphorus-containing products;
• Substance physicochemical properties;
• Raw materials and their producers;
• Equipment and its manufacturers;
• Expert system knowledge;
• Models for phosphorus-containing substance production;
• Phosphorus-containing products production flowsheets;
and some other auxiliary databases
The information available from various sources is fed into the toolbox, including the data from projects such as CAPE-OPEN (1997-1999), GLOBAL CAPE-OPEN and CO-LaN 2001-2004 for the chemical industry and will follow the standards established in these projects. Thus particular emphasis will be placed in order to promote the use and the development of the CAPE-OPEN standard in Computer-Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) software, and more generally to encourage all actions aiming at facilitating the use of CAPE software tools in industry, administration and academia.
The toolbox being developed has a multilevel structure (three-level architecture). The system consists of following components: database server, application server and client application.
The financial support from the EC FP6 Programme INCO-CT-013359 “ECOPHOS - Waste utilisation in phosphoric acid industry through the development of ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly processes for a wide class of phosphorus-containing products” is gratefully acknowledged.
See the full pdf manuscript of the abstract.
Presented Monday 17, 13:30 to 15:00, in session Environmental Engineering & Management (T1-3P).
